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1 LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 


1 




UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 







Cofumfiian ^ait (B^ifion. 



THE 



Discovery^ America 



BY 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



#> 



By harry hakes, M. D. 



^i^ 



God who regards thne not by years, but by eternities , reserves to His o~un ti»te 

and for His omnifiotcnt pleasure. His chosen instruments, to 

discover and publis/i His revelations. 



WILKES-BARRE, PA.: 
ROBERT BAUR & SON, PRINTERS. 

1892. <^^(,IX 



COPYRIGHT, 1892, By HARRY HAKES. 



(preface. 



•/T" the Author may be permitted to premise^ 
Qf\ that the mass of mankind in this hurry- 
ing age^ will neither purchase^ peruse or 
possess the extensive literature pertaini^ig to 
the ^''Discovery of America; " then^ he hopes the 
following pages may be found to contain a 
sufficiently full historical statement^ to eluci- 
date the great event the world is preparing to 
commemorate. 

HARRY HAKES. 



IVilkes-Barre, Pa., May 25th, 1892. 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



BY 



CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



CHAPTER I 



r... 

HE general verdict of mankind, founded upon 



l_^ the evidences which are preserved to us, is ex- 

t pressed in the single uncompromising sentence: 
" Christopher Columbus discovered America 
in the year A. D. 1492." Notwithstanding 
such a statement of the case is not technically in ac- 
cordance with the facts as they are recorded, yet it 
is quite certain that such an opinion has been deliber- 
ately founded, and will remain unquestioned history 
throughout the coming ages. 

The discovery of more than one-half of the sur- 
face of our planet, with its lands and waters hitherto 
unknown and quite unsuspected, was, in and of itself, 
the greatest achievement and the grandest event in 
recorded history. Such discoveries must of necessity 



DISCO VER V OF AMERICA 



be rare, for never again, by any foreseen possibility, 
can so distinguished an honor fall to the happy lot of 
any man as we cheerfully accord to the immortal 
Genoese navigator. 

However, in so far as Columbus was connected 
with the discovery of America, it was simply a princely 
accident — a mere incident in his unsuccessful attempt 
to navigate westwardly from Europe to Asia. The 
discovery of an intervening continent was not antici- 
pated nor recognized when discovered. The true 
character of the discover)^ can best be understood by 
keeping constantly in mind the object and purpose of 
Columbus in his voyages to the west. The bold navi- 
gator had determined to sail across the Atlantic Ocean 
to the opposite shore, where, by the general opinion, 
the eastern coast of Asia Vv'ould be found. Columbus 
embraced this opinion to its fullest exrent. Not only 
did he expect to sail to Asia, but he had become con- 
vinced that the distance was only three or four thou- 
sand miles. Upon what he based such a calculation 
it is difficult to conceive, nor did those who so strenu- 
ously opposed his undertaking appear to have seriously 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



challenged his computed distance. That Columbus 
monstrously underestimated the true circumference of 
the earth is abundantly evident ; but upon what data 
or facts, or even of theory, he was led to the belief 
that Europe and Asia were only separated by the west, 
three or four thousand miles, is likely to remain un- 
known. The enormous error as to the circumference 
of the earth which he embraced, and to which he 
adhered to his death, led him to the discovery of a 
continent, which barred his voyage to Asia almost at 
the threshold of his journey. 

Columbus did not live to learn that he had dis- 
covered a continent, or that the broad Pacific Ocean 
separated the land he discovered from the golden 
riches and splendors of the Asia he was seeking, but 
destined never to behold. 

On the morning of the I2th of October, 1492, 
Columbus landed and took possession of an island to 
the northeast of Cuba, called by the natives Guana- 
hani. This was the first land sighted on his first 
voyage. It is to this date and to this particular event 
that the world has rather awkwardly assigned to 



8 DISCO VER V OF AMERICA 

Columbus the high honors of the discovery of 
America. Columbus, however, on his first voyage 
of exploration discovered several islands, anlong them 
Cuba and San Domingo. His second voyage was 
limited mainly to explorations of Cuba and San 
Domingo. On his third voyage, on the last day of 
July or first day of August, 1498, he discovered the 
main land of South America, at the mouth of the river 
Orinoco. This was, in fact, his first discovery of the 
American continent. On his fourth and last voyage 
he landed upon the coast of Honduras, and followed 
the coast to the isthmus of Darien, and returned to 
Spain on the 7th day of November, 1504. This, in 
brief, is a statement of the total personal knowledge 
that Columbus ever had of the American continent. 
He died in i 506, and years before any one distinctly 
knew or recognized the exact nature of his discoveries. 
He died honestly persisting that he had reached Asia, 
or, as he seems invariably to ha\'e called the whole of 
Asia, " The Indies." 

No one then even pretended to deny him the honor. 
In fact, no one could. All thought upon the subject 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 9 

centered in the supposition that the lands discovered 
were the eastern extensions of Asia. 

The circumference of the earth, as determined by- 
Eratosthenes, 200 years B. C, seems to have been for- 
gotten, or entirely overlooked, or, still more probably, 
was never known by Columbus and his contem.poraries. 

The circumference of the earth, as understood by 
Columbus, made no allowance for the breadth of the 
American continent and the Pacific Ocean. It is 
evident that at that time, the general under.standing 
and belief was that the Atlantic Ocean connected or 
separated western Europe from eastern Asia. 

So certain was Columbus that he had reached 
Asia, that on his second voyage, while exploring the 
southern coast of Cuba, on the 12th of June, 1494, he 
ordered Perez de Luna, the notary' of his expedition, 
to draw up a document attesting his discovery of the 
main land of Asia, which was signed by all the masters, 
mariners and seamen of his three vessels, and sworn 
to in the presence of four attesting witnesses, embody- 
ing the penalty of having their tongues cut out in 
case they ever should say otherwise. 



I O DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 



CHAPTER II. 

^EFORE proceeding to a relation of the facts 
connecting the name of Columbus with the 
I discovery of America, it seems in best order : 
A first, to put some limit to the significance. 




" Discovery of America by Columbus," or to 
btate precisely the historical boundaries of such an 
assertion; secondly, to state the claims of those whose 
partisans allege were pre-Columbian discoverers of 
America; and, thirdly, a chronological and historical 
exposition of the various theories and philosophical 
speculations which constituted the ground-work, and 
upon which the grand experiment of Columbus was 
based. 

By adopting this method or order the true merit 
of Columbus becomes clearly and intelligently palpa- 
ble, and his proper place in history better recognized. 
It will also show with greater vividness and unmis- 
takable precision that the errors, great and small, 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. II 

which he embraced, the arguments he only half 
appreciated, the mistakes he unwittingly made, rather 
than scientific learning and abundant knowledge, 
made him but a flexible and uncertain instrument in 
the unconscious embrace of blind fate, good fortune, 
or a bountiful Providence, blindly led to the grandest 
geographical discovery which has ever blessed man- 
kind. 

The wording of the title-page hereof was duly 
considered and adopted upon careful deliberation. 
To assert that Columbus was the first discoverer of 
America would be the sum total of folly, in face of 
the fact that this continent had been inhabited for un- 
known ages. The substance of the claim indicated 
by the title-page is, that it is to Columbus, through 
whose strong faith, indomitable courage, persistent 
effort, and successful navigation, that Europe and the 
rest of the world is indebted for their first knowledge 
of the existence of the American continent. The 
grand problem or puzzle of the past ages had been as 
to the possibility of crossing the Atlantic. The first 
voyage of discovery by Columbus settled that impor- 



1 2 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

tant question for all time. From thence there was no 
novelty or particular merit in a trans-Atlantic voyage. 

The history of the origin or primary appearance 
of human beings on this continent is a sealed volume, 
which will never be opened by the resources of human 
wit or wisdom. To one of two possible sources 
their existence in America must be ascribed : they 
originated or were created here, or else they were 
deported from some other land. 

■ In a remote and unrecorded history of the earth it 
is possible that there may have existed a land connec- 
tion joining the two hemispheres of our globe by 
either the east or west. Again, it has been thought 
probable that primitive navigators may have been un- 
willingly carried across either the Atlantic or Pacific 
Ocean by adverse winds, or by favoring currents, and 
thus this land first became peopled. 

The architecture of ancient Mexico and Peru, so 
markedly suggestive of Egyptian origin, has suggested 
an ancient communion or commercial intercourse 
between the peoples of the eastern and western conti- 
nents, the history or knowledge of which has been 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



13 



buried in the oblivion of ages. Even speculation 
upon that problem is now useless. 

The old legends or stories of possible interknow- 
ledge between the continents previous to our era, or 
down nearly to the age of Columbus, are of no his- 
toric value, nor are they worth repeating. 




14 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



CHAPTER III. 






HE alleged pre-Columbian discoveries to which 
''^"■^ reference has already been made, and to which 
reference is now made, are, first, to a claim of 
A comparatively recent origin: "that the Northmen 



discovered some portions of the northeastern 
coasts of America about the year A. D. looo." 

Giving the fullest credit and effect to the evidence 
furnished in support of such a claim that a just and 
fair criticism can tolerate, it may be said that it is pos- 
sible that some parts of the northeasterly shores of 
North America were discovered by the Northmen. 

It is, however, alleged that they kept up a more 
or less constant intercourse with the American coast 
for about three hundred and fifty years, during which 
time attempts at colonization were made, all of which 
resulted in complete failure and in final abandonment. 

The disputable question is not as to the possibility 
of the Northmen having discovered the American 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 15 

coast. T'he possibility is already conceded. In fact, 
such a thing ought not to be considered very improb- 
able. The real point is: " Were they on the American 
coast ? And can the fact be established by such evi- 
dence as the nature of the case demands ?" It is 
asserted that their claim can be established by their 
records. The records or writings here alluded to are 
called " Sagas," and consist in part of old traditions 
of voyages to places or regions by them designated 
Helluland, Markland, Vinland, etc. Islands are also 
mentioned, so too are mountains and rivers ; but to 
them no names are given. The manuscripts were 
made from one hundred and fifty to two hundred 
}-ears after the events described transpired. As the 
Northmen sailed without log or compass, it is found 
quite impossible to determine the objective points of 
their voyages from the descriptions given in the Sagas. 
It is assumed by some that their Vinland must have 
been in Massachusetts or Rhode Island, and that the 
islands were Disco, Bear Island, Newfoundland, Nan- 
tucket, etc. The main land regions have been assumed 
to be anywhere from Labrador to Florida. Where, 



1 6 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

then, was their Vinland ? In the first place, we have 
simply the names of places given. Names alone are 
not descriptive, valueless, and without significance. 

One of our latest writers says : "The point is this : 
Do the manuscripts which describe their voyages 
belong to the pre-Columbian age ? If so, then the 
Northmen are entitled to the credit of the prior dis- 
coveiy of America." This seems to be a rash, an 
unwarranted, conclusion. The truth of the Sagas, or 
that they are pre-Colum.bian, is not in question. Pre- 
cisely what is required is, to locate geographically the 
names of the places mentioned in the Sagas. We 
have better methods of determining the location of a 
place than by simply a name. The best evidence is 
required to identify places, and such as the experience 
of ages has determined to be requisite. 

A deed of land without boundaries, and not iden- 
tified by any marks or monuments, would be quite 
Valueless. 

The partisans of the Northmen have never been 
able to agree, from a study of the Sagas, where to 
locate Vinland. It has been searched for on many 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 1/ 

latitudes and various longitudes. The attempt is to 
find a locality to correspond with such statements as 
are found in the Sagas. 

A coast line can be found on almost any shore to 
answer to, or correspond with, the vague and uncer- 
tain indications contained in the Sagas. This, in part, 
causes the disagreements among the students of the 
records. Experience has taught us that men who 
build with stone, and use metals for implements and 
weapons, are very certain to leave evidences that are 
quite enduring upon the ground they have occupied. 
If then there was any such occupation of this con- 
tinent, and particularly of the Atlantic coast, as it is 
claim.ed the Sagas relate, we ought to find some trace 
of it upon the ground. It is much less than 'three 
hundred years since the Pilgrims first landed on the 
coast of Massachusetts. Since then it is very certain 
the face of the country has been so marked that 
neither the ravages of a hundred or ten thousand 
years can efface the same. A party of hunters or 
fishermen, camped in some forest or on some stream 
for the space of two weeks, would be quite certain to 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



leave some tangible and long-enduring evidence of 
their camping. A pipe, a broken goblet, or piece of 
earthenware,' an empty and long-suffering beer bottle, 
a boot heel, buckle or button, a few stones placed for 
a seat or around a spring, a fireplace of stone showing 
the marks of fire, an old knife or spoon, or some such 
relic, would constitute a tell-tale long enduring and 
unmistakable. Some such evidence would be much 
more satisfactory and convincing than their exag- 
gerated narratives and stories, with the added em- 
bellishments of twenty generations, concerning the 
dimensions and ferocity of a huge bear alleged to 
have been killed after a fierce and sanguinary struggle, 
or the size of a monstrous trout that was hooked, but 
not quite landed. 

From the remotest period of history' a claim of 
discovery or proprietorship of lands must be mani- 
fested by monuments and marks upon the lands 
claimed. A stake driven in the ground, a heaping up 
of stones, the blazing of a tree, the erection of a build- 
ing, the raising of a flag, or some similar manifestation, 
is required to give public notice of the claim made. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 19 

But the Northmen left neither chart, mark nor monu- 
ment to proclaim discovery, possession, conquest or 
occupation of any part of America. They were familiar 
with the use and manufacture of metals, had metal 
implements and weapons ; but upon American soil no 
tangible evidences have been found to fortify a belief 
that they ever landed upon the American coasts. 

In whatever other region they ever set their feet 
they have left enduring and unmistakable evidences 
of their occupation. 

It would seem to have been the proper time to 
publicly assert their American claim at the time of 
discovery, or at least on the return of the Cabots and 
Columbus from their American voyages. Most cer- 
tainly Europe never heard of such a claim until two 
centuries had elapsed from the American voyages of 
Columbus, nor until the Cabots, Corterial, Verrazzano 
and a host of navigators had voyaged the whole 
northeastern regions of America over and over again, 
and made charts of the coast. Conceding then the 
possibility of the Northmen's discovery, we must nev- 
ertheless say it profited neither themselves nor any one 



20 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

* 
else an}'thing, nor were they — Europe or the world — 
the better or wiser therefor. 

Several recent publications upon the subject are 
emphasized by a decided hostilit}- to Columbus. 

The righteous and impartial judgment of mankind 
upon the various and conflicting claims made has long 
since been pronounced, while the spontaneous and 
world-wide efforts now being put forth for an inter- 
national commemoration in honor of Columbus, as 
the discoverer of America, may possibly have a ten- 
dency to convince the over-zealous partisans of other 
claimants that the world is little inclined to reverse an 
opinion so long and so universally entertained upon 
the subject. 




BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 21 



CHAPTER IV. 

I^N this connection a reference to a claim of pre- 
Columbian discovery of America by the partisans 

'^ 

I of Americus Vespucius cannot be overlooked. 
Gjp ... 

JK This claim is supposed to be somewhat enhanced 



or fortified by the circumstance that his name 
became attached to the newly-discovered continent. 
Vespucius himself never made a definite or distinct 
claim as a pre-Columbian discoverer of America. 
Nevertheless, the origin of such a claim, whether 
wittingly or otherwise made, is, however, apparently 
traced to Vespucius himself 

To understand the pertinence of the facts involved 
in this claim it is necessary to bear in mind that 
Columbus discovered the West India Islands in Octo- 
ber, 1492, but that he did not discover the main land 
of the continent until July 31st, 1498, while perform- 
ing his third voyage of discov' ery. The only evidence 



22 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

which has ever been adduced to prove that Vespucius 
discovered the continent of America before Columbus 
is an alleged letter claimed to have been written by 
him in 1504 to Piero Soderini, an old friend and 
schoolmate, living in Italy. His claim, therefore, rests 
solely upon his own alleged letter, unsupported and 
uncorroborated in any and eveiy particular. The 
claim, said to have been set forth in the alleged letter, 
is : " That he sailed with a fleet of four vessels from 
Spain, May loth, 1497, under the commission of King 
Ferdinand, and that he discovered the South American 
coast, at Farias, on or about the 20th of June follow- 
ing." It is said that in the letter he claimed to have 
made four voyages to the new lands, and to have given 
an account of his four voyages in like manner to his 
old friend. 

He certainly did make an American voyage in 
1499 to "^^ South American coast, concerning which 
there is abundant corroborative proofs and no dispute, 
although he was not the commander of the expedition, 
having sailed in a subordinate capacity. The only 
alleged voyage pertinent to our present purpose, and 



BV CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 23 

which is and has been the subject of vehement dispute, 
is the asserted voyage of 1497, otherwise called his 
first voyage. The evidence of such a voyage is un- 
satisfactory, unconvincing, and is not conceded by the 
best authorities. Extensive and abundant search has 
been made for the original letter, and for the alleged 
commission for the said voyage, among the records 
and archives of the Government; but neither the letter 
nor the commission, nor any allusion to any such docu- 
ment, nor any mention nor any reference to any such 
voyage, has ever been found. No report of any such 
voyage has ever been found or alluded to in any 
private letters, papers or public documents. In the 
entire absence of any real, possible, or probable cor- 
roborative evidence of what must have been an open, 
public, notorious voyage or transaction, it has seemed 
quite too absurd a proposition to be generally credited. 
The negative evidence is so overwhelming that the 
better opinion seeks rather for some error or mistake 
than in forgery or fraud to account for such a claim. 
Perhaps the best solution of the matter which can be 
suggested is : that the claim was an after-thought of 



24 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

some one (possibly innocently enough) to sustain by 
implication an argument that Vespucius was the first 
discoverer of the main land, because his name had 
been first suggested for the new lands in 1507, by a 
little anonymous geographical publication emanating 
from the College of St. Die in the Vosges Mountains. 
The question in dispute will probably never be settled 
to the entire satisfaction of everybody. In any event, 
the claims for Vespucius and for the Cabots (presently 
to be mentioned) rest upon substantially the same 
foundation. We ought not to feel very sure that our 
opinions upon the merits of the case are of more value 
than the opinions of the men who lived at the time, 
and were actors and participants in the transactions. 
After the death of his father, and of Vespucius also, 
Diego Columbus, in 15 12, brought an action against 
the Spanish Crown, as heir of his father, to be put in 
possession of the dignities, prerogatives, titles and 
revenues granted by the sovereigns to his father and 
his heirs, and also to the government of certain pro- 
vinces on the Pearl coast of the continent of South 
America. The Government put in the plea for a defence 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 25 

"that those countries were not first discovered by- 
Columbus, and that, therefore, the claim of Diego was 
not valid." More than one hundred witnesses were 
examined, but the name of Vespucius was not even 
mentioned. If Vespucius made the alleged discovery 
in 1497, it would have constituted a perfect defence to 
the action of Diego against the Crown, and it is more 
than suggestive that the King availed himself of no 
such defence. Diego Columbus won his case against 
the Crown, and thus proved his father to have been 
the first discoverer of South America. Many of the 
witnesses, as well as the King himself, had enjoyed 
every opportunity of knowing all the facts of the case, 
and it seems rashly imprudent now to ignore the judg- 
ment then solemnly rendered. The exact question in 
issue was as to the first discovery of Paria, or the Pearl 
coast, which involved all there is in the claim of Ves- 
pucius as a pre-Columbian discoverer. The question 
was determined by a competent court of public justice, 
and by its judgment we ought to abide. 

It was not until 15 14 to 15 17 that the name 
America first appeared upon the charts of the newly- 



26 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



discovered land. At that time both Columbus and 
Vespucius were dead. 

Las Cassas, who was acquainted with both Co- 
lumbus and Vespucius, seems to have thought that 
the naming of the new land was an intentional 
fraud upon Columbus by Vespucius. He was cer- 
tainly laboring under an erroneous impression, for 
Vespucius never made any suggestion as to the 
naming, and had been dead some two to five years 
before his name was first given to the land. At first 
the name was applied only to a portion of South 
America, which had been explored by Vespucius in 
1499. Later, when North America had become more 
explored, the name appeared upon Mercator's map 
(1541) as "Ame" upon North America, and "Rica" 
upon South America. Finally, the name "America" 
was extended to cover and embrace the whole Ameri- 
can continent, north and south. 

Columbus and his partisans were barred from sug- 
gesting a name, for the reason that he insisted that the 
lands were the Indies. During his lifetime, and for 
many subsequent years, the " Indies" was tiie name 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 2/ 

universally applied in referring to the new discovery. 
There first appeared some propriety in giving the 
newly-discovered land a new or distinct name, in the 
latter part of the year 15 13, after Balboa had from the 
Peak of Darien discovered the great waters of the 
Pacific Ocean, which settled the question at once that 
the land was no part of Asia or India. Humboldt 
was therefore right in concluding that it was accident 
and not fraud that attached the name of "America." 

Since these pages were written there has been publibhed an excel- 

*. 
lent work, " The Discovery of America," by John Fiske, in which he 

contends that in the original letter of Vespucius to Soderini, concerning 
his first voyage (1497)^ he speaks of a locality he visited to the west of 
Yucatan, called by the natives " Lariab," which by an abominable error 
or mistake in translation, proof-reading, or printing, in the book pub- 
lished at St. Die, the word " Parias" appears instead of " Lariab." 
Paria, or Parias, designated the Pearl coast of South America, in the 
region of the mouth of the river Orinoco. It was the exact question in 
issue as to the first discovery of "Paria," and not any other locality, 
that was to be decided in the lawsuit between Diego Columbus and the 
Crown. Paria and Lariab are localities separated by 2400 miles. 

If this explanation is correct, it abundantly shows why the alleged 
discovery of Paria by Vespucius, in 1497, was not set up by King 
Ferdinand to defeat the claim of Diego Columbus. Thus Vespucius, 



28 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

in fact, made no claim to having discovered Paria in his letter to 
Soderini, for he used the word " Lariab," and not " Paria." This 
explanation of Mr. Fiske, however, decides nothing as to the first 
discovery of the main land, unless it is that the expedition on which 
Vespucius sailed did discover main land in 1497 at Honduras and 
Yucatan a year before Columbus discovered Paria and the Pearl coast. 
It can, however, only be a poorly concealed hostility to Columbus that 
furnishes the ponderous cheek to thrust upon either Vespucius or the 
Cabots the distinguished honor of first discoverers of America, a 
distinction they were too honest and too honorable to claim or assert. 




BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 29 



CHAPTER V. 



^HE next and last claim put forth which it seems 
l^l^ necessary to notice is : " That John and Sebas- 
tian Cabot were pre-Columbian discoverers of 
America." It is somewhat remarkable that at 
this late day such a claim is put forth in face of 
the fact that the Cabots themselves never claimed any 
such distinction. 

The venom which pursues the fame of Columbus 
will not rest or be satisfied until a pre-Columbian 
discoverer is somewhere found. First, the claim is 
made in the most positive terms for the Northmen, 
then for Vespucius, and finally the Cabots are sum- 
moned to the assault. In the second edition of B. F. 
DeCosta's publication, 1890, entitled "The pre-Colum- 
bian Discovery of America, by the Northmen," not 
quite satisfied to risk their claims upon the evidences 
furnished, we read on page six of Preface: "This work 
is not issued with any intention of seeking to detract 



30 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

from the glory of the achievements of Columbus, 
though we should remember that the time is rapidly 
approaching when history will summon us to honor 
the Cabots, the great fellow-countr).anen of the 
Genoese, who saw the continent of America before 
Columbus himself viewed it." The latter part of this 
sentence is decidedly stale news. During the last 
390 )'ears no one has ever disputed the fact. That 
the Cabots, under commission of King Henry VII, 
of England, sailed from Bristol, England, in the good 
ship Matthew, and discovered the northeastern coasts 
of America, in the region of Newfoundland, a little 
more than a year before Columbus saw the main land 
of South America, is true; but before crediting them 
" pre-Columbian discoverers of America," let them 
speak for themselves. It is manifest that'they were 
highly honorable men, and modest in speaking of 
their navigations. In a conversation with the Pope's 
envoy, in Spain, Sebastian Cabot says : " When news 
were brought that Don Christopher Colonus (Genoese) 
had discovered the coasts of India, whereof was great 
talk in all the Court of King Henry VII, who then 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 3 I 

reigned, insomuch that all men with great admira- 
tion affirmed it to be a thing more divine than 
human to sail by the west into the east, where spices 
grow, by a map that \vas never known before — by 
this fame and report there increased in my heart a 
great flame of desire to attempt some notable thing." 
Thus we see the notable thing or voyage he contem- 
plated and performed was entirely secondary to the 
great first voyage of Columbus, which all men (him- 
self included) thought rather a divine than human 
exploit in navigation. If the discovery of the main 
land by Vespucius, in 1497, is conceded, no more 
merit could attach to it than to the discovery by 
the Cabots. Cabot, like a generous, honorable man, 
gives the reason and the prompting for his voyage. 
Certainly, Vespucius couW give no better reason, had 
he felt so disposed to do. There seems, therefore, 
no urgent necessity, at this particular period, for Mr. 
DeCosta to notify us that " history will soon summon 
us to honor the Cabots," etc. However, it is pre- 
sumed the world will be in readiness to honor the 
Cabots whenever the summons is served. The Cabots 



32 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

were not only honorable, but brave men, and never, 
so far as is known, begged of Columbus a share in 
the honors pertaining to the discovery of the new 
world. 

That it was the first daring voyage of Columbus^ 
and his discovery of land in the depths of the Atlantic, 
which led to the discovery of our continent soon 
afterward, upon which is based " The Discovery of 
America by Columbus," is quite apparent, rather than 
the actual continental discovery, whether by Vespucius 
or the Cabots, in 1497, or of Columbus, in 1498. 
Had the real character, magnitude and significance 
of the first discoveries been at the time known or 
understood, there cannot be a doubt that the whole 
continent and islands would have been rightly and 
promptly christened Columbia, 

Therefore the general judgment of the civdlized 
world, upon a candid consideration of all of the facts 
of the case, is generous, righteous and just. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



CHAPTER VI. 

^jT^MBUED with a proper admiration, and possibly 

>-iiI5 a rather fervent enthusiasm for the o-reat Genoese 

I navigator, there are potent reasons at this time 

J\. why we should recall the history of the discov- 



ery of our continent from the depths of time, 
and refresh our memory with the labors and contribu- 
tions of the ancient world, in studying the problems 
that made the voyages of Columbus apparently feasible 
and possible. We cannot conceive that thinking men 
could be forever content to dwell on this earth without 
first or last experiencing a curiosity or desire to ascer- 
tain its extent and form. At what early age such a 
desire was first manifested history fails to inform us. 

It was the proper business of the people inhabiting 
this earth to ascertain its dimensions and form — to 
search out and utilize the lands and waters upon its 
surface. This was not the work of a day, year, or of 
a thousand years, as we well know. Nor yet was it to 



34 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 



be the result of the labors of one man or of one nation 
or age. 

To correctly estimate or appreciate the noble and 
heroic part performed to this desirable end and intent 
by the subject of this dissertation, let us bring before 
our minds in brief review the various steps or pro- 
cesses of speculation, theories, reasonings and demon- 
strations which paved the way for one who possessed 
the faith and courage to attempt the demonstration of 
a problem that to his day rested only upon deductions 
from theory or the speculations of the philosopher. 
If the earth were really round, the proposition of 
Columbus to sail west to Asia was feasible. The 
question thus hinged upon the sphericity of the earth. 
The sphericity of the earth was not apparent to the 
common sense of the ancient world. It certainly was 
no popular theory in the age of Columbus, nor would 
it be now except for the actual demonstration made 
since 15 19. 

Ev^en the voyages and discoveries made by Co- 
lumbus, did not demonstrate the possibility of circum- 
navigating the earth, or of themselves sufficiently 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 35 

demonstrate the earth . to be a sphere. That great 
event awaited a Magellan, not many years later. 

Astronomers had become satisfied of the sphericity 
of the earth long before attempts were made to estimate 
its size. The Egyptians and Chinese were pioneers in 
astronomical obsei-vations, but their records give no 
iniimation of even a suspicion that the figure of the 
earth is spherical. We call to mind no passage in the 
Old Testament, or in the later sacred writings, indica- 
tive of the spherical form of the earth. In fact, the 
phrases, " face of the earth," and " ends of the earth," 
indicate simply the early Greek idea of the earth, 
to wit : a disc, the popular idea and representation, as 
late and later than the era of Columbus. 

In brief chronological order let us enumerate some 
of the leading theories and proofs which Columbus 
found at hand to fortify him in his belief that he could 
navigate to China by a voyage westward from Europe. 
Not that we can assert that Columbus was aware of 
all that was or had been known, or that he entirely 
appreciated all the ancient arguments and theories. 
Very certain he did not. 



36 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

About looo years B. C, Homer speaks of the 
earth with its circumfluent ocean. This is not a very 
definite geodetic representation, but embodied the 
original Greek disc-earth, a plane, and surrounded by 
an ocean. About 600 years B. C, Thales, of Miletus, 
recognized as a very wise man, and founder of the 
Ionian School of Philosophy, is said to have believed 
the earth to be globular or spherical in form. This 
is the earliest intimation we have been able to find 
pertaining to the matter; and if he was in fact the first 
man to possess such an idea, we may agree with his 
countrymen that he was a very wise man. 

Some 530 years B. C, Pythagoras, of the Ionian 
School of Philosophy, in Italy, taught publicly that 
the earth was in form spherical, and was the center of 
the solar system; but to a select coterie of his disciples 
he taught, privately, that the sun was the center of 
the solar system, and that the earth moved around 
the sun. Most certainly he must have had the best 
idea of all the ancient philosophers regarding the 
bodies and movements of the solar system. More 
than 2000 years later, Copernicus, with greater oppor- 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 37 

tunities and additional evidences, perfected the Pytha- 
gorean theory of the relative positions and movements 
of the bodies of the solar system. 

About 520 years B. C, Anaximander, a successor 
of Thales at the school at Miletus, is said to have 
thought the earth cylindrical in form. It seems 
reasonable to doubt, if this translation gives us the 
real idea of that distinguished philosopher. Philolaus, 
of Crotona, a disciple of Pythagoras, believed, like 
his master, that the earth was a sphere. Nicetas 
seems to have been one of the first philosophers who 
dared to publicly teach the theory of Pythagoras. 
HeracHdes, of Pontus, and Ecphantus, disciples of 
Pythagoras, were the first to teach the revolution of 
the earth upon its axis, causing the apparent motion 
of the stars. About the same time, Eudoxus, of 
Cnidus, is said to have held the earth to be a sphere, 
from observing the differing altitudes of the stars from 
different points on the earth's surface. 

Three hundred and fifty years B, C, Aristotle, a 
distinguished philosopher and the father of the modern 
methods of demonstrations in the exact sciences, an 



38 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

astronomer, geographer and cosmographer, of great 
authority in his age, speaks of the sphericity of the 
earth as a matter generally agreed upon by the learned 
astronomers of his day. About 326 years B. C, Pythias, 
of Marseilles, made the first attempts to utilize the 
resources of astronomy in aid of geographic represen- 
tation. He was a distinguished navigator, and voyaged 
as far north as Iceland, then known as " Thule," or 
" Ultima Thule." 

Dicasrchus, a pupil of Aristotle, about 310 years 
B. C, made the first approach to a modern projection 
of the earth — a first attempt toward the construction 
of maps and charts, representing the surface of the 
earth. 

Two hundred years before our era, Ptolemy Euer- 
getus, called Eratosthenes to the care and superin- 
tendence of the renowned Alexandrian library. As 
Thales appears to deserve the high honor of first 
announcing the sphericity of the earth, so likewise 
Eratosthenes appears a pioneer to demonstrate, upon 
correct principles, the magnitude and circumference 
of the earth. He was discreet enough to adopt the 



BV CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 39 

method which modern science has fully approved. 
He appears to have assumed that Syene, one of the 
most southern cities oi ancient Egypt, was situated 
upon the same meridian as Alexandria. He therefore 
conceived the idea of determining the amplitude of 
the celestial arc, intercepted between the zeniths of 
the two places, and of measuring at the same time 
their distances apart on the ground — operations which 
would furnish the data for the determination of the 
entire length of the terrestrial meridian or total cir- 
cumference of the earth. Syene was known to be 
situated exactly under the Tropic of Cancer, for on 
the day of the summer solstice the sun cast his rays 
to the bottom of a deep well in that city. Eratos- 
thenes also had observed that on the day of the 
solstice the meridional distance of the sun from the 
zenith of Alexandria to be seven degrees and twelve 
minutes — the fiftieth part of 360 degrees, and the 
fiftieth part of the circumference of the earth. The 
surveyors of Alexander and the Ptolemys had deter- 
mined that the itinerary distance between Syene and 
Alexandria was 5000 stadia; therefore the distance, 



40 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



\ It' 






►•V A 




BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 4 1 

multiplied by fifty, gave 250,000 stadia for the circum- 
ference of the earth. It has been objected that we 
cannot know with much precision what the distance 
or circumference was determined to be, as we are not 
certain as to the length of the standard or stade he 
used. To some extent this is so. But the distance 
between Syene and Alexandria is and was substantially 
500 miles ; therefore, by dividing his numbers by ten, 
gives us 500 miles, and 25,000 miles. This makes 
the circumference 160 miles too much, and yet the 
error, for the purposes of circumnavigating the earth, 
would be of but little moment. It may, for our pur- 
poses herein, be assumed that ten stadia represented 
one English mile. While we may not know the exact 
length of the stadia used, we may, nevertheless, feel 
certain that the distance between Alexandria and 
Syene is the same that it was 2000 years ago. In 
fact, Syene passed the meridian about ten minutes 
ahead of Alexandria; but even that error would 
change the result but a mere fraction. 

A century and a half B. C, Hipparchus, a learned 
astronomer and skilled mathematician, laid down the 



42 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



true rule and guide for correct geographic represen- 
tation, to wit : by a determination of the latitude and 
longitude of places. He discarded entirely the es- 
timated distances of travelers. 

Near this period, Crates, of Mallus, made (so far 
as we can ascertain) the first artificial globe. On this 
he delineated the surface of the earth as he guessed 
it to be. 







BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 43 



CHAPTER VII. 



^^JuSbOUT the year 75 A. D., Marinus, of Tyre, 
_iL|^ made an attempt to construct a map of such 

i portions of the earth's surface as he had some 
A knowledge about upon the plan suggested by 

" Hipparchus, and added such portions as he 
had heard about from travelers. His map was known 
by Columbus through Ptolemy. The monstrous error 
it contained in making the distance east from the 
Canary Islands to the east coast of China 225 degrees 
of longitude, as well as a smaller error on the map of 
Ptolemy, next to be mentioned, led Columbus into the 
enormous error of supposing he could come to the 
eastern Asiatic coast by a voyage to the west of three 
thousand to four thousand miles. It is not unsup- 
posable that a daring and courageous navigator might 
undertake a voyage of three or four thousand miles, 
over an unknown and dreaded sea, who would hesitate 
at a voyage of 14,490 miles. 

Claudius Ptolemy, the greatest geographer of his 



44 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

time, made his observations at Alexandria, and between 
the years 127 to 150 of our era put forth his geo- 
graphical conclusions upon a map which, until the 
time of Columbus, remained an authority among the 
learned. In him were combined the elements of learn- 
ing absolutely essential for a geographer, to wit : a 
knowledge of astronomy and mathematics. As his 
almagest continued an authority among the learned 
for many centuries, so likewise his geography con- 
tinued the best exposition upon that subject, until it 
was displaced and superceded by the progress of 
maritime discovery in the fifteenth and sixteenth cen- 
turies. Like his predecessor, Marinus, he attempted 
to construct his map upon the plan suggested by 
Hipparchus, to wit : by determination of the latitude 
and longitude of places, so as to exhibit their relative 
positions and distances and directions one from the 
other. Ptolemy was so well pleased with the work 
of Marinus that he used it as a basis for his own in 
many respects, particularly (as he says) for those 
regions bordering upon the Mediterranean Sea. 

Both Marinus and Ptolemy failed to appreciate or 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 45 



concede the computations of Eratosthenes and Strabo 
as to the magnitude or circumference of the earth, 
to wit: about 25,000 miles. As a result it distorted 
all the relative positions and distances of places. Of 
course, they, as well as Eratosthenes and Strabo, com- 
puted the circumference of the earth by the Babylonian 
sexagesimal system of 360 degrees to complete the 
great circle. But they assumed that the known world 
from the Canary Islands (their prime meridian) by the 
east to Quinsay, the eastern coast of China, covered 
or embraced, according to Ptolemy, 180 degrees, and, 
according to Marinus, 225 degrees, while the real 
distance is but 130 degrees (8190 miles). This was 
favorable to the project of Columbus, for the greater 
the known distance the shorter would be the unknown 
distance. Their great error is palpable upon inspec- 
tion of the map of Ptolemy, by his endeavor to extend 
the European and Asiatic longitudes east to 180 
degrees, when they are embraced within 1 30 degrees. 
Thus the Mediterranean Sea appeared 600 miles longer 
than it is. Of course this fundamental error extended 
to his whole delineation. A large portion of his map 



46 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

was pure conjecture. It had been a fixed belief of all 
the Greek geographers that the earth was about twice 
as broad from east to west as from north to south. 
Though it was a pure assumption, it took so firm a 
hold upon the minds of men that even Marinus and 
Ptolemy show us by their maps that they were imbued 
with the common error. 

There can be no doubt that the undue extension 
of Asia to the east, so as to diminish by about sev^enty- 
five to ninety degrees of longitude the interval between 
that continent and the western coasts of Europe, had 
a material or possibly a controlling influence in foster- 
ing the belief of Toscanelli, Columbus, and others, 
that it was possible to reach the land of spices by a 
short voyage to the west. 

To sum up the value of the real knowledge of this 
prince of geographers, and the value of his map to 
Columbus, we must bear in mind that Iceland was his 
northerly limit for Europe ; that the Atlantic shores 
limited him as to the west ; that the western coast of 
Africa, from Cape Bojador south, and the whole 
southern part of that continent, was unknown or only 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



47 




48 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

conjectured, and that he supposed Asia and Africa 
were connected by land at the south. Southern 
Europe, Western Asia and Northern Africa were the 
only land regions tolerably well known to him; while 
as to Northern Europe, Eastern and Northern Asia 
and Southern Africa his work was pure conjecture. 
Of course he had no knowledge of the breadth of the 
Atlantic Ocean ; and as for the great Pacific Ocean and 
its islands, and the continent we inhabit, he never knew 
of or suspected their existence. 

If any one will construct a globe or make a map 
of the earth, leaving out the continent of America and 
the Pacific Ocean, they will have an approximate idea 
of the geography of Ptolemy. And we beg to bear 
in mind that this was about the length and breadth of 
the geographical knowledge possessed by Columbus 
when he sailed from Spain in 1492 to reach Asia by 
a short westerly voyage. So much then was the 
geographical knowledge of four hundred years ago. 
The fortunate, but nevertheless monstrous, error which. 
Toscanelli and Columbus imbibed from Marinus and 
Ptolemy is now easily understood. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



49 



But also as favoring the project of Columbus, he 
had learned from Toscanelli, a fact unknown to Marinus 
or Ptolemy, to wit : that a large island was situated 
some distance off the east coast of China called by 
him Cipango or Zipangu. All together, this led 
Columbus to believe would reduce the real interval 
between the Canary Islands and lands off the east 
coast of China to three or four thousand miles. 




so DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 



CHAPTER VIII. 
(sj|>/^ROM the age of Thales to Ptolemy, some seven 




hundred and fifty years, astronomy, mathe- 
\> matics and geography had made great progress, 
A and the problem of the earth's surface was 
' gradually unfolding. But the early centuries 
of our era were doomed to intellectual blight and 
commercial stagnation. The clashings and contests 
between the old and new religions, extending to bloody 
contentions for empire as well, delayed the progress 
and development of art, science and commerce, so that 
at the end of a thousand years the material interests 
and intellectual status of Europe had retrograded 
rather than progressed. From the age of Ptolemy 
for a thousand years neither Egypt, Greece, Rome or 
Christendom produced a man whose additions to the 
fund of astronomical or geographical knowledge is 
worthy of mention as a contribution to the new intel- 
lectual life developed in the thirteenth, fourteenth and 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 51 

fifteenth centuries. Those dark and unhappy centu- 
ries, from the third to the thirteenth, put Columbus 
under no obhgations for services rendered or theories 
advanced to aid him in solving the problem of a suc- 
cessful western voyage over the Atlantic. 

Before the timiC of Columbus the mariner's compass 
was in use, as also the astrolabe and cross-staff — the 
two latter, rude instruments for determining positions 
at sea. The Canary, Madeira and Azores Islands had 
been discovered, and the art of printing had been 
recently introduced in Europe. When the Turks, in 
1453, closed the caravan route to the east by way of 
Constantinople, Christian Europe began to feel the 
necessity of opening some new route for commerce 
and trade v/ith the eastern countries. 

Marco Polo, a Venetian gentleman, in 1295, re- 
turned from a prolonged visit through Persia, India 
and China. His descriptions of the magnificence, 
wealth and splendor, manufactures and productions 
of the extreme east, so far surpassing anything known 
in Europe, in gold gems, silks, spices and perfumes, 
that enraptured fancy pictured it as Elysium, El- 



5 2 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

Dorado, the earthly paradise, the ever receding vision, 
the first and last happy dream of every age and clime. 
Marco Polo's father and uncle had been to China 
before, and were the first Europeans to visit that dis- 
tant country. Kublai, King of China, made them his 
embassadors to the Pope, requesting His Holiness to 
send him one hundred learned men to teach his people 
Christianity, and instruct them in the arts and civiliza- 
tion of Europe. 

On their second visit to China they took with them 
Marco, a young man then about twenty years of age, 
who was at once engaged in the service of the King, 
visiting all parts of the kingdom. He was evidently 
a keen observ^er, and after several years of govern- 
mental serv'ice the King much regretted to permit him 
to return to Europe. After his return to Venice he 
was taken prisoner in a war between Venice and Genoa. 
While detained as a prisoner of war at Genoa, a fellow 
prisoner wrote down at his dictation the story of his 
travels and adventures and all the wonderful things 
he had seen in the region of the extreme east. The 
second part of his book is descriptive of the different 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 53 



states and provinces of Asia, with notices of their 
wonderful sights and products, their curious customs 
and manners and remarkable events, and especially 
regarding the Emperor, Kublai, his riches, power, his 
court, wars and administration. The existence of the 
island of Japan, situated off the east coast of China, 
was first known by Toscanelli from the work of Marco 
Polo. Toscanelli communicated this fact to Columbus 
in 1474. The manuscript was later translated into 
several languages, and some eighty manuscript copies 
are still in existence. 

As Columbus afterward ranked as the prince of 
navigators, so as truly was Marco Polo to that day 
the greatest traveler by land the world had produced. 
The wonders of Asia were thus brought vividly to the 
knowledge of Europeans. Italy may well boast this 
contribution to Europe, as well as the contributions of 
her other son, the courageous maritime hero, Christo- 
pher Columbus, who garnered the secrets of the dark 
Atlantic. 

Nearly two hundred years had expired, however, 
before a real attempt was made to utilize the fund of 



54 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

information furnished by jVIarco Polo. At that day 
the art of printing had not been introduced in Europe, 
and that "traveHng school house" or universal edu- 
cator, the "newspaper," was yet a thing of the dim 
future. To-day the harnessed lightning would hasten 
to convey such a revelation, and before our old earth 
could perform one rev^olution or somersault, millions 
of people, to the remotest parts of the earth, would 
have read the strange and welcome news. Slow it 
was, but as the story of Marco Polo became gradually 
known and digested, it soon became the prime object 
of the nations of western Europe to reach the opulent 
and distant countries he had visited and described. 
Nor was an overland journey, requiring years to per- 
form, practicable for the purposes and necessities of 
profitable and successful trade and com.merce. Besides, 
the Turks then possessed the keys to the gates of the 
pathway. If there could be found an open sea-way 
around the south of Africa it would open a route by 
water, for the east coast of Africa as far south as 
Zanzibar was already known, and the crossing of the 
Indian Ocean would brine: the navigator to the coveted 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 55 

prize. To this undertaking the Portuguese bent all 
their energies. To reach India and Asia by a con- 
tinued and unbroken navigation was the crowning 
ambition of the time, for as yet a western voyage 
across the Atlantic was unsuggested. 

The millennium of mental darkness was drawing 
to a close. The thousand years of bigotry, ignorance 
and superstition were amply fulfilled. The dawn of a 
more happy era is manifest, and the heralds are 
announcing the second birth of science, while mankind 
seem impelled by new and more reasonable impulses. 
The advent of great men is foreshadowed and the 
grand secrets of the earth are the coming revelation, 
while quickening, generous (though tardy) nature is 
about to bring forth the man to hasten the grand 
event, whose daring genius shall pierce the gloom of 
that long, dark night of ages, and lay open to mankind 
the boundless resources of a new world. 



56 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 



CHAPTER IX. 

^HRISTOPHER COLUMBUS was born in 
^Ji Genoa, Italy, possibly as early as 1436, but as 
jii now seems more probable about 1446. The 
A events of his early life are involved in much 
" obscurity. Could what he in after years 
accomplished have been foreseen, every act of his 
early life would have been recorded to the minutest 
particular. He did not become an object attracting 
any observation or notoriety before we find him in 
correspondence with Paolo Toscanelli, in 1474, in 
reference to the feasibility of a westerly voyage to 
China and India. From that time until the 5th of 
May, 1487, it is impossible to place an exact date to 
any event in the life of Columbus. Neither to his 
first arrival in Portugal, his marriage, or the birth of 
his son Diego, the death of his wife, his conference 
with King John, or his leaving Portugal and his 
arrival in Spain, can exact dates be assigned. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 57 

• We are informed that he left the University of 
Pavia at the age of fourteen years. Exactly how long 
he had been at the University we are not informed, 
but w^e are told that under the tutelage of Antonio da 
Terzega and Stefano di Faenza he studied astronomy, 
mathematics and navigation. These studies show us 
the natural tendency of his youthful mind, because 
they were a necessary preliminary to his future pro- 
fession. His age, however, precludes the idea that he 
had become a proficient or profound scholar. Upon 
leaving the University it has generally been assum.ed 
that he immediately adopted the life of a seaman. 
Recent investigations, however, render such an as- 
sumption quite improbable. 

Of his apprenticeship in navigation we possess no 
record. Therefore, as we find him mentioned as a 
resident of Genoa until 1470, or possibly 1473, and 
after that time in Portugal, there is a blank of ten 
years from his age, fourteen years in 1460 to 1470 or 
1473, ■^vhich we cannot fill up v/ith events of his life 
with any certain or satisfactory data. In after years 
Columbus says of him^self: "Wherever ship has sailed 



5 8 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

there have I journeyed." We know he visited the 
Greek Isles, the Guinea coast, England, and possibly 
Iceland, or more probably some other northern island. 
The earlier story of his being on a wrecked expe- 
dition, under an old corsair, and cast upon the coast 
of Portugal, must now be discredited. We can locate 
him in Portugal about 1470, certainly during 1473. 

During his residence of some twelve or fourteen 
years in Portugal, we learn that he was married, and 
that his son, Diego, by that marriage was born to 
him. His wife'had relatives among the navigators of 
the day, and from the logs of those veteran seamen 
he is said to have derived useful and interesting infor- 
mation. Part of his time was spent in Porto Santo, 
an island of the Madeira group, where he went with 
his wife to enjoy some property left her by her father. 
It was during this Portuguese sojourn that he busied 
himself in studying the works of Nearchus, Aristotle, 
Pliny, Roger Bacon, the cosmography of Cardinal 
Aliaco, the travels of Marco Polo and Mandeville, and 
the geography of Marinus and Ptolemy. His studies 
seem to bear relation exclusively to the sciences 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 59 

essential to his chosen profession, and are indicative 
of what he afterwards was to attempt to accomplish. 
It would be a pleasure to know just when and from 
what data he arrived at the conclusion that he could 
reach the east coast of Asia by a voyage westward 
from Europe. Part of his time was spent in making 
maps and charts for a livelihood, for he was a skillful 
draughtsman. It was a time when the air was filled 
with tales and propositions of discovery. The captains 
of Prince Henry, of Portugal, had been gradually push- 
ing their voyages down the West African coasts, and 
in some of these voyages Columbus was a participant. 
As early as 1474 he appears to have been in corre- 
spondence with Paolo Toscanelli, of Italy, a celebrated 
physician, astronomer and cosmographer, cencerning 
the feasibility of a western voyage to Asia. Tosca- 
nelli was a philosopher and Columbus a courageous 
seaman. As to the possibilities of the proposed 
voyage, these men were of one mind and conclusion. 
ToscanelU seems to have been the first scholar and 
cosmographer to give Columbus emphatic encourage- 
ment to the undertaking. 



6o DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

It is said that Aristotle, Strabo and Seneca thought 
it might be possible to sail west to India. All that, if 
true, goes for next to nothing, as no suggestion was 
made as to its feasibility, and those authorities made 
no proposition of any attempt to prove or substantiate 
the theory. 

In Columbus we find the very first man of our 
race (so far as we may know) who was deliberately 
preparing to make the definite voyage by the unknown 
westerly route to the easterly shores of Asia, thus 
completing a full knowledge of the circumference of 
the globe east and west. As to this project the world 
furnished him no competitor. Whoever has since 
crossed the Atlantic Ocean is under some obligation 
to him for performing his first voyage. 

His accidental discovery of America we concede. 
We also concede his failure to sail to Asia. But we 
say once for all time that any possible previous unde- 
termined and unpremeditated voyages to this con- 
tinent, whereof is no chart and doubtful record, must 
count for nothing in the absence of marks and monu- 
ments of either colonization, conquest or possession. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 6 1 

As before stated, in formulating their philosophy, 
neither Toscanelli nor Columbus appear to have been 
controlled or influenced by the computed circumfer- 
ence of the earth by Eratosthenes, and both seem to 
have embraced the error of INIarinus as to the enor- 
mous easterly extension of the Asiatic continent. 
Columbus, even as late as his third voyage, said : 
" The earth is much smaller than most people sup- 
pose ;" but he does not say how large it is nor how 
large he thought it to be. Kad he believed that the 
voyage from Europe by the west to Asia would cover 
14,490 miles, we cannot readily believe he vv'ould have 
either contemplated or hazarded the experiment of 
navigating that expanse of unknown, dreaded and 
untraveled sea with three little boats and a mutinous 
crew. 

At this point, v,-hile we observe Columbus matur- 
ing his plan and project for his western voyage of 
discovery, or rather his voyage to Asia, it is deemed 
appropriate to direct attention to the data from which 
he constructed his theories. Of course, it must be 
apparent to all that to plan his first voyage — nay! 



62 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

more, before such an enterprise could find lodgment 
in human conception — at least two theories must be 
conceiv^ed and developed to their utmost limit as 
theories. 

The first, relates to the form or sphericit)- of the 
earth ; the second, to its size or circumference. The 
first, Columbus seems to have accepted as a fact 
proved. As to the second (its circumference), it is 
difficult, or rather impossible, to say just what his 
opinions were upon that matter. By taking such 
opinions as he has left us we obtain curious results. 
He sailed his first voyage in full confidence of reach- 
ing the east coast of Asia or the adjacent islands 
after sailing about 3000 miles. Taking the miles of a 
degree of longitude on the twenty-fifth degree of north 
latitude as sixty-three, and the distance around the 
earth on that parallel of latitude as 22,680 miles, and 
the true distance across Europe and Asia as 8190 
miles, then to reach Asia by sailing west he must sail 
14,490 miles. If he accepted Ptolemy that Europe 
and Asia extended over 180 degrees, then he must 
sail 1 1,340 miles. If he accepted Marinus, that Europe 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 63 

and Asia extended 225 degrees, then he must sail 
7505 miles to reach the Asiatic coast. As he sailed 
3500 miles west, that would still leave an interval of 
4000 miles. If, however, he gathered the idea from 
Marco Polo that Cipango, or Japan, lay three or four 
thousand miles off the Asiatic coast, because he simply- 
said that it was a great distance, then Columbus was 
justified in expecting to find Japan, or Cipango, about 
where he found San Domingo. In other words, by 
embracing the error of Marinus, and mistaking the 
distance that Japan lay off the Asiatic coast by some 
3500 miles, made altogether a shortening of the earth's 
circumference upon latitude 25 degrees north of about 
10,000 miles, a little more or less. Exactly hov/ much 
or how little he really knew about these distances is 
very uncertain and indefinite. We are just about as 
likely to do him injustice by supposing he knew more 
than he did, as by assuming that he knfew less than he 
might have known. 

Events, however, crowded our hero forward, and 
he must have felt that no time was to be lost — for 
Portugal was on the alert, and had determined to 



64 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 



reach India by circumnavigating Africa, if that were 
possible. 

The competing spirit of maritime enterprise was 
fairly awakened, and the very air was full of rumored 
adventure, while the weird imaginings of many gene- 
rations of medieval navigators began to assume quite 
tangible shape and substance. Nothing that had any 
bearing to fortify Columbus in his theory seems to 
have escaped his careful attention. Prolonged west- 
erly gales had thrown upon the coasts pieces of wood 
and canes unknown in Europe, and the bodies of two 
men had come ashore at Flores, differing from Euro- 
peans. Perchance there might float before excited 
fancy the legendary islands of St. Brandan and the 
lost island of the Seven Cities. 

At what particular time Columbus had definitely 
determined to undertake the westerly voyage we can- 
not determine, but rnost probably before the year 1484. 
Columbus was poor, without friends of means or influ- 
ence to secure him an outfit, nor could the proposed 
expedition be wisely undertaken by an individual. 
There are reasons for believing that like a true son of 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 65 

Italy he proposed the enterprise first to the Senate of 
Genoa. We are told that the project was rejected as 
visionary and impossible. He next offered the scheme 
to King John II, of Portugal. This appears to have 
been between 1482 and 1485, the probabilities indicat- 
ing the latter date. 

Accustomed as we are to our democratic manners 
and customs, and the ease with which our public 
functionaries are approached on all proper occasions, 
and for proper purposes by the humblest citizen, we 
must, to appreciate the difficulties and embarrassments 
that beset Columbus in Portugal, and afterwards in 
Spain, bring before our minds the fact that a mere 
citizen, simply, could make no direct approach to the 
sovereign, and no audience would be granted. A 
king or queen, by the grace of God, is one thing ; a 
president or governor, elected by the people, is quite 
another thing. An officer elected for a short term by 
the people, and who generally desires a second term, 
is not generally known to be uncivil to the voter, by 
the grace of God and by virtue of the constitution. 
In those days it was quite an awful thing to be per- 



66 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

mitted to look upon the sovereign, while to speak in 
his presence would be audacious. 

Without money, without possessing any voucher 
of learning from some university, without friends of 
influence, it mattered little that Columbus wished to 
present a scheme to result in the revolution of the 
moral and mental world — to give to Portugal, Spain 
or Europe more than the one-half of the surface of the 
globe. His scheme was too great and premature to 
command attention. In fact, it was looked upon by 
the learned as visionary, impracticable, impossible, and 
he was regarded as quite a lunatic. His claim, there- 
fore, upon the attention of the royal ear was decidedly 
flimsy and uncertain. We are not definitely informed 
as to his gaining royal recognition from King John H, 
of Portugal. However, Columbus did lay his propo- 
sition, possibly, before the King in person. He wished 
to be furnished with a proper outfit, and proposed to 
reach Asia by sailing to the west. His demands for 
compensation, if successful, were substantially the same 
as will presently appear when his proposition was laijJ 
before the Spanish monarchs. 



BV CHRISTOPHER^JOOLUMBUS. 6/ 

Notwithstanding the Portuguese had already de- 
termined to reach Asia by quite a different route from 
the one proposed by Columbus, yet King John ap- 
peared to appreciate the grand possibilities of the new 
scheme of Columbus, and to perceive somewhat the 
force of the argument by which he advocated his 
novel idea. Therefore, after a careful examination of 
the matter, the King referred the plan of Columbus to 
his council for geographic affairs. The report of the 
council was adverse to the undertaking. The Bishop 
of Ceuta, however, v.-as so impressed by Columbus 
that, notwithstanding the adverse report of the council, 
he persuaded the King (who also favored the project) 
to carry out the scheme of Columbus without his 
knowledge, by sending out secretly a caravel on the 
mission. The caravel put to sea, but did not sail very 
far before the sailors lost all courage and compelled a 
retreat and return. 

Of course, Columbus soon learned of this dishonor- 
able attempt to appropriate his idea and scheme, and 
hastily and somewhat secretly left Portugal in disgust. 
Some thought he left thus clandestinely to avoid the 



63 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

King, while others said it was to escape his creditors. 
The latter reason appears the more probable, as we 
gather from the fact that seven or eight years later 
King John wrote him a friendly letter, earnestly 
requesting him to return and engage in the sen-ice of 
Portugal, promising him immunity from trouble or 
annoyance from any civil or criminal process. This 
was, however, after he was committed to the ser\-ice 
of Spain, and the offer was not accepted. 




BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 69 



CHAPTER X. 

Y^N leaving Portugal, Columbus probably went 
Q\ !j^j (^ii-g(;|-iy ^Q Spain, still seeking a patron for his 
enterprise. Some authorities will have it that 
A this is the period when he laid his scheme 




before the Senate of Genoa. The accounts of 
his plans and movements for the next few years are 
too conflicting to make it possible for us to feel certain 
that we have any orderly and historically authentic 
rendering, nor does it now matter that such is the 
case. Our conclusions will be the same, though our 
curiosity must remain ungratified. The more popular 
story is that Columbus, with his young son, stopped 
at the convent of La Rabida, near Palos, and making a 
rather abrupt acquaintance with the good old friar, Juan 
Perez de Marchena, so impressed him as he unbosomed 
his grand scheme that he received from him a letter 
to Ferdinand de Talevera, the Queen's confessor, de- 
signed to introduce him to the notice of the Court. 



70 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

It seems very doubtful if he made such rapid 
progress toward the Spanish sovereigns, or that he on 
this first visit to Marchena really received a letter 
intended as an introduction to Court. It may well be 
doubted if Columbus, an entire stranger in Spain, was 
laboring under the delusion that his strange scheme 
would be as likely to command the approval of the 
Court, as to send him to a mad-house. His own good 
sense would dictate a slower and more cautious pro- 
cedure. If he could impress his theory upon cosmo- 
graphers or navigators, or some prince to whom he 
could more easily find access, he would secure recom- 
mendations that would put him on the highway to 
the Court, and secure him a patient even if also a pre- 
judiced audience. He well knew how unpopular was 
his theory. His proposition was as novel, and at that 
time as seemingly preposterous, as would now seem a 
proposition to visit and explore that half of the moon 
whose face is never shown to mortal eyes. 

The histories are quite unanimous in showing 
Columbus several years later (autumn of 1491) at 
La Rabida, when Friar Marchena wrote a friendly and 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 7^ 

potent letter in the interest of Columbus to Queen 
Isabella. He was undoubtedly at La Rabida on two 
occasions, and certainly found a friend in Juan Perez 
de Marchena ; but the accounts of the transactions at 
these two visits have become intermixed by the histo- 
rians. It seems more probable that Columbus made 
his proposition to the Duke of Medini Sidonia and 
the Duke of Medini Celi before he went to Cordova, 
where the matter of his proposed voyage was first 
laid before the sovereigns. The Duke of Medini 
Sidonia at first was favorably im.pressed with the 
project, but finally dropped into the popular error 
that the project was visionary. 

The Duke of Medini Celi was a man of wealth 
and enterprise, and took an intelligent interest in the 
scheme of Columbus, and seriously thought of fur- 
nishing the necessary fleet. He entertained Columbus 
for quite a period (Navarrete thinks for nearly two 
years), but finally and wisely concluded the enterprise 
too vast for a subject to undertake. Conquest was to 
follow discovery, while trade, barter and piracy were 
closely related. Undoubtedly, as the actual facts dis- 



72 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

closed after the discovery of the new lands, it needed 
the strong military power of a national authority to 
subdue and hold in subjection the lands discovered. 

At this juncture Columbus had concluded to go 
to France and seek government aid, but was persuaded 
by his friend, the Duke (who seems to have fairly 
appreciated and approved his plan), to apply at once 
to the Spanish Court, and he gave him a friendly 
letter to the Queen. Upon the strength of this letter 
the Queen summoned Columbus to Court at Cordova. 
It is of little consequence to us whether Columbus 
reached the Spanish Court through the letter of Juan 
Perez de Marchena, or rather of the Duke of Medini 
Celi, or that he had letters first or last from both 
sources. We are pleased to know that in either or 
both cases he found a warm and intelligent as well as 
influential friend. 

It appears to have been in the latter part of the 
year i486 that Columbus reached Cordova, where the 
Spanish Court then was. It was an unpropitious time 
for Columbus. The war for the expulsion of the 
Moors was the engrossing business of the time, and 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 7?> 

both Ferdinand and Isabella followed the camp in 
person, while the stubborn resistance of the Moors 
kept them too busy to devote either time or attention 
to the proposition of Columbus. The sovereigns, 
through Talevera, probably were apprised of the 
arrival of Columbus and the nature of his business. 
It is not probable, however, that at this time Columbus 
was given an audience in person at Court. Columbus 
met Alonzo de Quintanella and made him a convert 
to his theory, and on the removal of the Court to 
Salamanca, Columbus was introduced to Archbishop 
Mendoza, sometimes called the third King of Spain. 
The Archbishop was converted to the project of 
Columbus, but at first thought it smacked strongly of 
heteradoxy ; yet it was through his influence Colum- 
bus obtained a personal interview with the King. The 
result was that the sovereigns, being constantly engaged 
in the war, were unable to give much attention to the 
scheme; but, being enough impressed with it to desire 
holding Columbus partially committed to them, re- 
ferred the whole matter to Ferdinand de Talevera, 
with directions to entertain Columbus at government 



74 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

expense. The date of May 5th, 1487, heretofore 
mentioned, contains an entry by the treasurer of the 
Catholic sovereigns as follows: "Given this day, three 
thousand maravedis [about eighteen dollars] to Chris- 
tobal Colon, a stranger." 

In 1487, Talevera summoned a court or junta of 
geographers and astronomers to confer with Colum- 
bus and obtain his plans and the arguments in their 
support, with directions to report to the sovereigns 
upon the feasibility and advisability of the proposed 
undertaking and expedition. In all governments and 
in all times this mode of investigation for the advice 
and information of the executive government is both 
proper and common. The junta selected in this case 
was a bad one for the interests of Columbus. Selected 
by our standard as to whether or not the individual 
members had already formed or expressed an opinio:, 
for or against the matter, we may assume that most 
of them would have been " challenged," or at least 
directed to " stand aside for the present." The jurors 
were mainly ecclesiastics — authorities, such as may be, 
in matters of faith. They seem to have required 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



75 




76 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

Columbus to prove his theory from the Bible and the 
writings of the fathers, for from these authorities they 
deluged him with texts and quotations to overthrow 
his theories. It would be more amusing than instruc- 
tive to quote the various and ridiculous objections of 
those jurors, and at this day not especially interesting 
to note the logical arguments of Columbus, now so 
well known and understood by the merest school-boy. 
However, this distinguished jury was out a long time, 
and modern usage would have discharged in for dis- 
agreement at the end of two years or sooner. But it 
took the jurors three years and more to reach an agree- 
ment. And at last, in 1490 or 1 491, they made a report 
unfavorable to Columbus and his project. Under these 
circumstances, as a matter of course, this unfavorable 
report, from what was thought the best authorities, 
almost of necessity prejudiced their Majesties against 
the undertaking of the proposed expedition. Colum- 
bus was now quite in despair, and appears to have 
resolved to proceed to France for the purpose of lay- 
ing his proposition before the French King. Some 
authorities think that it was at this juncture that he 



BV CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 77 

sent his brother Bartholomew to England to submit 
his project to King Henry VII. It may, however, 
have been before this time ; but at any rate nothing 
came of it. This procrastination and delay of the 
Court of Spain must have been exasperating to 
Columbus. On his journey to France he stopped at 
the convent of La Rabida to see his son and his good 
friend, Perez de Marchena. The time of this second 
visit to the convent of La Rabida must have been in 
the autumn of 1491, for it was in December of the 
same year that the Queen summoned Columbus from 
La Rabida to appear at Court at Santa Fe. We can- 
not agree with some of the historians who claim that 
it was at this period that Columbus was spending 
nearly two years with the Duke of Medini Celi. The 
time at his disposal would not permit it, nor does it 
appear reasonable that Columbus applied to the Dukes 
of Sidonia and Celi for an equipment for his voyage 
after the undertaking had been condemned by the 
learned junta and rejected by the sovereigns. The 
good old friar, Marchena, was in distress for Colum- 
bus, and at once sent for his neighbors. Dr. Garcia 



78 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

Fernandez and Martin Alonzo Pinzon. An earnest 
and hasty conversation followed. A letter was pre- 
pared for Queen Isabella, and was sent by one Sebas- 
tian Rodriguez. The Queen was then at Santa Fe. 
He found ready access to her Majesty, and delivered 
the letter. Isabella wrote a letter replying to Juan 
Perez de Marchena, requesting him to come immedi- 
ately to her Court, and directing him to retain Colum- 
bus — to await with hope her further pleasure. * 
On receiving this letter, the old friar mounted his 
mule and rode in haste to Court. He was promptly 
ushered to the royal presence, and we may rest as- 
sured the project of Columbus found in him an en- 
thusiastic, powerful and potent advocate. The Queen 
was convinced, and requested that Columbus should 
be immediately forwarded to Court, sending him at 
the same time a purse of $216.00 to enable him to 
appear fairly presentable. Columbus found the Court 
at Granada, and arrived in time to witness the sur- 
render of that place, which ended the Moorish war. 
This appears to have been in January, 1492. The 
sovereigns had all along named that event as the time 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 79 

when they would perso7ially consider the proposal of 
Columbus, and they kept their word. Persons in 
their confidence were appointed to complete the nego- 
tiations with Columbus, it is here that he appears at 
his best. He felt such complete confidence in his 
project, that he demanded terms thought to be too 
exorbitant. He demanded for himself, and for his 
heirs in perpetuity, to be admiral of all seas traversed, 
viceroy of all lands discovered, and a tenth of all 
profits obtained by barter, conquest or otherwise. 

These terms were not conceded, and the negotia- 
tions terminated. His terms now appear to have been 
rather extravagant, and undoubtedly were so con- 
sidered even then. A prudent monarch might reason- 
ably hesitate to grant so much. Columbus, hov/ever, 
proposed no compromise or second price for his 
services. Again he act-ially set out on his journey to 
France. There must have been consternation at the 
Spanish Court, and a hurried consultation between 
those who favored the scheme of Columbus. Luis de 
St. Angel, receiver of the ecclesiastical revenues of 
the crown of Aragon, was put forth as their spokes- 



So DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

man, to make another effort to secure the services of 
Columbus, for Jic was now evidently master of the 
situation. He appears no longer a pauper supplicant, 
but is going to make at least one-half of the bargain. 
In fact, he alone dictated the terms, and the sovereigns 
accepted them. Yes, his terms will be granted (re- 
luctantly by Ferdinand); but the terms will eventually 
prove to be the beginning of his downfall, and result 
in his final disgrace and degradation. St. Angel must 
have pressed the proposition of Columbus forcibly 
upon Isabella, for she suddenly declared for the expe- 
dition, saying she would undertake it for her own 
crown of Castile; and if great haste were necessary, 
she would pledge her crown jewels to meet the ex- 
penses. St. Angel told her it would not be necessary. 
Bless her memory! for when a woman will pledge 
her jewels or jewelry, she means business. So rapidly 
did these events transpire that Columbus was over- 
taken when only six miles from Santa Fe, whither he 
returned, and where, on the 17th day of April, 1492^ 
the final agreement between himself and the sovereigns 
was duly signed and sealed. The original terms of 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 8 1 

Columbus were so modified that he might then, and 
at all times, contribute one-eighth of the expense and 
receive one-eighth of the profits. The original terms 
as to his offices and titles were granted as at first 
demanded. 

The success of winning the Queen, and through 
her the King, to the scheme of Columbus, is undoubt- 
edly due to the timely and potent influences of Juan 
Perez de Marchena, Alexander Geraldinus, Archbishop 
Mendoza, Diego de Deza, the Duke of Medini Celi, 
Quintanelli and St. Angel — the two latter Ministers of 
Finance. From all the historians of the time and 
events, we gather the opinion that Ferdinand would 
scarcely have patronized the novel undertaking with- 
out the impelling influence of Isabella. The King 
was slow, cautious, calculating and cold. These are 
the conventional terms quite universally applied to 
King Ferdinand; but a more liberal expression, and 
probably more exact, would be, that he looked upon 
the project as a matter of business, to be entered into 
and executed upon business principles. 

Isabella was Queen in her own right ; and if, like 



DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 



Ferdinand, the approach to the reason and intellect was 
difficult, yet the avenues to her heart in the cause of 
humanity, and bringing to the true faith (as she under- 
stood it) millions of the heathen world, were easily 
traversed. It is supposable that King Ferdinand, 
Mendoza, Quintanelli, Marchena and St. Angel had 
quite as good ideas of the costs and uncertainties of 
the expedition, as well as the possible commercial and 
financial advantages that might result from the scheme 
of Columbus, as had the Queen. Yet it was by a 
different line of argument that she was made a con- 
vert than that which operated upon them. Certainly 
no woman, before or since, has enjoyed the high 
distinction and honor of signing an agreement so 
momentous in results. In our admiration for the 
great navigator, let us not be unmindful of the signal 
good offices rendered in this behalf by this queenly 
woman and womanly Queen. Columbus was a devout 
churchman, and declared his purpose to reach Cipango 
and Cathay, and to convert the Grand Khan to the 
Christian faith. He expressed the determination to 
devote his prospective gains or profits to the raising 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 83 

and equipping a crusading army of four thousand 
horse and fifty thousand foot, for the retaking of the 
Holy Sepulchre at Jerusalem. 

By a memorandum, which is here inserted, it 
appears the sovereigns felt a commendable anxiety to 
make a favorable impression upon the potentate near 
the rising sun. This little memorandum also shows 
unmistakably that the sovereigns, as well as Columbus, 
had in mind as the objective point of the expedition 
the eastern coast of Asia, and not any intermediate or 
unknown land. They therefore furnished Columbus 
with the following unique letter of introduction to the 
supposed eastern sovereign : 

" FERDINAND AND ISABELLA TO KING . 



" The sovereigns have heard that he and his subjects entertain great 
love for them and for Spain. They are, moreover, informed that he 
and his subjects very much wish to hear news from Spain, and send 
their Admiral, Ch. Columbus, who will tell them that they are in good 
health and perfect prosperity. Granada, April 30th, 1492." 

About two hundred years before this date (1295, 
the date of the return of Marco Polo from Cathay) 



§4 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

f 

there might possibly have been some sense, propriet}% 

point or appropriateness in inditing such a letter. It 
is quite apparent that the King and Queen had in 
their minds King Kublai, so grandly described by 
Marco Polo. As the sovereigns did not know and 
had no means of knowing who, or if any one, then 
occupied the throne of Kublai, or, if so,' who might be 
his successor, it appears that their statement : " That 
they had heard that he and his subjects entertained 
great love for them and for Spain, and that they are 
informed that he and his subjects very much desire 
to hear news from Spain," was a very late reply to an 
entirely imaginary inquiry, and a strange apology for 
their somewhat presumptuous and preposterous letter. 

It is not apparent how Columbus could have met 
his one-eighth of the expense, except that his good 
friend, Juan Perez de Marchena, induced Martin Alonzo 
and Vincente Yanez Pinzon to subscribe his share. 

Three small vessels were to be fitted out : the 
Santa Maria, a decked ship, with a crew of fifty men, 
the Admiral Columbus in command; the Pinta, thirty 
men, commanded by Martin Alonzo Pinzon ; and the 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



>s 



Nina, twenty-four men, commanded by Vincente Yanez 
Pinzon — the two latter were caravels without decks. 




FLEET OF COLUMBUS. 



The real number of men who embarked on the expe- 
dition is uncertain. The estimates range between one 
hundred and one hundred and thirty men. Our 
ordinary idea of ships requires some modification to 
appreciate such small craft as ocean rangers. The 
largest vessel was from fifty to seventy feet in length, 
and twenty feet beam — a sort of elongated tub. 



86 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

Never again in this world will such a fleet plow 
the ocean waves upon an errand so momentous in 
results. So fearful were the men of the dangerous 
character of the expedition that indemnity to criminals 
was offered to fill the quota of men. When all was 
ready to sail, the friends of the crews gave up all hope 
of ever seeing them again, and wept and mourned as 
for friends who would never return. Before liftincr 
anchor, Columbus and his men, as was always his 
custom in each new adventure, proceeded to the 
church and partook of the Holy Sacrament. 

As we glance back at the narration of events, the 
variance of any one of which might have defeated the 
grand discovery of Columbus, we may better under- 
stand his frequently-expressed opinion: "That he was 
but a humble instrument, guided by the inspiration of 
Providence, to bring together the ends of the earth"' 
(to connect a knowledge of the unknown with the 
known). However, we may be permitted to discover, 
in the ten thousand miles which yet separated the 
lands he discovered from Asia, that he had mistaken 
or misinterpreted the Divine will and intention. Yet 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 



87 




DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 



undoubtedly his discoveries had both a direct and 
indirect tendency to hasten the full and final revela- 
tion of the whole circumference of the earth. 

The expedition was then in readiness to proceed 
upon its novel and uncertain voyage. Before hoisting 
sail, however, this seems a proper place to enumerate 
some of the modern means, methods, instruments, etc., 
now used or known in aid of navigation, none of 
which were then known or used. The log, for measur- 
ing the velocity of sailing; the telescope; the position 
of the satellites of Jupiter; the dipping-needle; the 
watch or chronometer ; a sea-chart of ocean currents, 
and sextant for determining latitude, and the reefing 
of sails. Of course he could have no sea-map, show- 
ing islands, rocks, shoals, or shores, except such as the 
fertile imagination of Toscanelli could invent. Such 
a chart he had, and by it his voyage was governed. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 89 



CHAPTER XL 

^//,i\V)N Friday, the 3d day of August, 1492, at eight 
>\ ' i\ o'clock in the morning, the ships sailed from 
(E!^3 the port of Palos and stood out for the Canary 
I Islands, which Columbus and Toscanelli were 
right in supposing lay upon about the same 
parallel of latitude as Japan or Zipangu. On the 
third day out, the Pinta lost her rudder, and on the 
9th of August the fleet put in at Teneriffe to refit the 
disabled caravel. Here they remained until the 6th of 
September, when learning, as is said, that a Portuguese 
fleet was in their pursuit, they again put to sea, sailing 
nearly due west. From the Canary Islands, where 
the trans-Atlantic voyage commenced, the average 
route of Columbus followed about upon the twenty- 
fifth parallel of north latitude, the length of a degree 
of longitude thereon being sixty-three miles and the 
earth's circumference on the same latitude 22,680 
miles. A gentle breeze bore them along safely and 
without incident or accident at the average rate of 



90 



DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 




BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 9' 

about lOO miles per day of twenty-four hours. It 
has been said that the seamen were very much fright- 
ened by the variation of the magnetic needle, on the 
13th of September, and that the explanation of the 
cause by the Admiral quieted their fears. This is as 
clear as mud; for the biggest land-lubber on the ex- 
pedition must have known just as much about the 
cause as did the Admiral, or any other man to this 
day. On the 17th of September the crews began to 
be uneasy and clamorous to return. With the prevail- 
ing ignorance and superstitions of the time, we can 
readily imagine the feelings, Arguments and dangers 
which the crews set forth as reason for an immediate 
turning around of the expedition and returning to 
Spain. It is not difficult for us to imagine the answers 
and assurances by which their commander attempted 
to allay their fears. There is a general agreement 
among the historians that Columbus kept two reckon- 
ings of the distance sailed — a true reckoning for him- 
self, and a subtracted one to deceive his frightened 
crew. If, under the circumstances, this was pardonable, 
certainly the commanders of the other vessels, the 



92 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

pilots, or even the crews, could just as well and with 
just as much precision estimate the velocity of the 
ships and the distance sailed as the Admiral. 

The statement of Oviedo, that Columbus at one- 
timfe compromised with his frightened and mutinous 
crews, promising to return if land were not dis- 
covered in three days, is not probable or admitted by 
any modern historian. Still westward they sailed,. 
borne along by gentle breezes, and on the 25th of 
September, and again on the 7th of October, there 
were false alarms of land. The signs of nearinsr land 
for the last two or three days of the voyage were as- 
suring. On the evening of the nth of October, a 
sharp lookout was ordered. At two o'clock on the 
morning of the 1 2th of October, Roderigo de Triana, 
a sailor on the Pinta, announced the sight of land, 
and an alarm gun was fired. 

Columbus afterwards claimed that he had per- 
ceived a light ahead at eleven o'clock on the evening 
of the I ith, and secured a reward that had been 
promised by the sovereigns to the one who should 
first discover land. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 93 



At sunrise on the morning of the 12th a landing 
was made. Columbus, in full uniform, accompanied 
by the officers of the fleet and a portion of the sailors, 
and bearing the royal standard of Spain, took formal 
possession of the island for Spain, at the same time 
planting the royal standard and the emblem of the 
cross. The island discovered belonged to the Bahama 
group, and there is now some uncertainty as to the 
precise island of his landfall. The better, opinion 
seems to designate " Watling's Island," as the Guana- 
hani of the natives. The distinguished honor, how- 
ever, has been claimed for four other islands in more 
or less close proxim.ity. Columbus christened the 
island " San Salvador." 

The great mission of Columbus was then sub- 
stantially completed. He had accepted the challenge 
to all former navigators, and nature's defiance to all 
preceding ages ; he had made a gallant fight, and now 
a well-earned victory came to reward his labors. The 
bugaboo of uncounted ages vanished before his 
conquering sails, and was thoroughly exterminated by 
the successful completion of the voyage of his three 



94 



DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 




BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 95 

little boats. Henceforth and forever there will be no 
dark and dreadful Atlantic — no threatening and fearful 
western sea of darkness. Like magic, the fearful im- 
aginary' monsters, so seemingly real, and always just 
beyond the scope of sane vision, contracted to noth- 
ingness, and hereafter will exist only like the mem- 
ories of a hideous dream of a disturbed sleep. Here- 
after this great ocean road is to become the greatest 
and grandest route for profitable commerce and the 
most traveled route for pleasure and pleasant pastime 
on our globe. The safe and successful voyage of 
Columbus must have made the old sea-dogs of Europe 
fairly grin at their own ignorance and cowardice, and 
possibly to curse the event that forever closed the 
door to the high honor pertaining to a first successful 
navigation across the Atlantic. 

The triumph of Columbus, as will presently be 
observed, from its very simplicity, was short lived, for 
as he afterwards, in 1498, wrote to the sovereigns: 
" Now that I have shown them the way, the very 
tailors want to become explorers." Of course, it may 
be said that Columbus had not yet discovered the 



9^ DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

main land of the American continent. That is so; but 
he had traversed the Atlantic waters and came upon 
solid land, beyond the alleged dreadful sea, some 3500 
miles westward from his starting point. Sailing from 
thence to almost any point of the compass, except 
by a return upon his outward course, he or others 
must of necessity, and finally did, arrive upon the main 
land of both North and South America. 

Columbus remained in the vicinity until January, 
1493, meantime discovering Cuba, Hispaniola (after- 
wards Hayti, now known as San Domingo), and sev- 
eral other smaller islands. On the coast of Hispaniola 
his own vessel was wrecked, and out of her timbers a 
small fortress was erected at La Navidad, and forty- 
three men were left there to explore the island, collect 
gold, and await his return voyage from Spain. Having 
secured some specimens of gold, native curiosities, 
trinkets, native birds, ani-mals, plants, gums, spices and 
other natural productions, he took on board nine of 
the natives and proceeded on his return voyage, arriv- 
ing at the Azores February i8th, and the Port of 
Palos on the 15th of March, 1493. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 97 



CHAPTER XII. 

,HE Court was then at Barcelona. Columbus 

dispatched letters to the sovereigns announcing 

i his arrival, the success of the expedition, and 

A at once proceeded in person to lay before their 

' Majesties, the world, and particularly before 

those who had so persistently opposed and ridiculed 

his theories, the evidences of his triumph. We may 

surmise that the miserable criminals, who mainly 

constituted his crews, experienced some of their 

commander's exultant feelings, and in consequential 

manner claimed some of the distinction pertaining to 

the first voyage, completing the supposed proof of 

the sphericity of the earth. 

A voyage up the Mediterranean Sea to Barcelona 
would not bring before the people of the country 
with such notorious prominence the astonishing feat- 
ures and results of the trans-Atlantic voyage as the 
more leisurely journey by land, attended by rather 



98 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

pompous entries and transits into and through the 
villages along the line of the overland journey. Ar- 
temus Ward once asked, " What is the use of having 
jewelry unless you wear it ? " Columbus determined 
to go by the overland route. 

When Columbus formed his procession for the 
Court at Barcelona, enthusiam put on full head of 
steam. It took him about a month to make the 
journey. The Indies, as well as the Indians, had 
been found, as all believed. The rude golden trinkets 
were prominently exposed to the general view. Rare 
birds and animals, heretofore unknown and unseen by 
Europeans, were paraded in style. The productions 
of the strange land had their places assigned, while 
the natives were decked in their ludicrous gay trap- 
pings and feathery garb. Altogether it appeared so 
strange and unusual to behold these things from 
beyond the sea of darkness, that it is little wonder 
the streets were thronged, the air resounding with 
tumultuous, victorious shouts, and that the great dis- 
coverer appeared almost an object of worship and 
adoration. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 99 

But the climax was reached when the procession 
drew up in the presence of the sovereigns, and Colum- 
bus, in a triumphant but dignified manner, related the 
stoiy of his voyage and discoveries. The sovereigns, 
dignitaries and all present fell upon their knees, giving 
thanks to God for the success of the expedition. The 
cathedral choir chanted the "Te-Deum Laudamus." 
The enemies of the Admiral, and all who had com- 
bated and ridiculed his theories, were silent, yea, dumb. 
Here before them all, and with what appeared abun- 
dant proofs, and witnesses, animate and inanimate, 
stood this great seaman and navigator, whom all con- 
ceded had sailed by the west to Asia and India, and 
safely returned. The sum total of the rumored wealth 
of India and Asia was ready to tumble into and repose 
in the lap of Spain. 

It were well, were it possible, here to cut short our 
story and leave Columbus in the enjoyment of the 
honors he had so gallantly won. It is the privilege 
of romance and fiction to draw the curtain at the 
point or period where the hero might choose, leaving 
him to repose on the summit of his glory. Not so 



lOO DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

with history. History must relate the whole story, 
and may not close its narrative until every necessary 
fact and circumstance is duly recorded, regardless of 
the consequences to the name, fame or reputation of 
any one. 

To cut the story of Columbus at this point, we 
would leave him temporarily outranking ever\' human 
being in the whole world, excepting alone his sover- 
eigns and the supreme head of the Church. He 
rode beside the King, and was a welcome guest of the 
highest dignitaries of the State and Church. 

As Sebastian Cabot intimates, " a sort of divinity 
seemed for the time to overshadow him." Within 
seven short years his wine cup of joy will be filled 
with vinegar and gall, his name and fame become by- 
words, he will be shorne of his honors, his titles, his 
offices and his emoluments, and sink into almost entire 
insignificance. That uncertain thing, designated " Pub- 
• lie Sentiment," or " Public Esteem," will swing to the 
opposite extreme and drop its one day hero to a 
beggar's estate. It is said " that time at last makes 
all things even," etc. The clarifying effects of four 



BV CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 10 1 



hundred years may not be sufficient to make the 
voyages or discoveries of Columbus appear to us 
superhuman or supernatural; but sober judgment will 
not permit us to cast entirely aside or to forget his 
great service to science, to commerce, and to humanity. 

The people of this day and generation will do his 
name, fame and memory ample justice, and to the full 
extent of their ability publicly rectify the wrongs done 
to and endured by this great man at the hands of the 
people of his own day and generation. 

Columbus was an enthusiast ; his statements, gen- 
erally careless, were often contradictory, and some- 
times absurd, while his descriptions of prospective 
wealth were overdrawn and unwarranted. Hence, as 
the sequel will show, charges of deception and dis- 
honesty were easily and apparently not without some 
foundation made against him. It became difficult and 
impossible for him to sustain the very expectations he 
had unwittingly excited. Years of hard labor in the new 
country vv-ere required to produce and cause to yield 
in its sugar, rum, cotton, tobacco, wheat, corn, fruits, 
pork and beef — its real, substantial and ever recurring 



102 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

wealth, rather than the gathering of a few scattered 
nuggets of gold, soon exhausted, with no second crop. 
The great discoverer was not entirely unlike his com- 
panions. Gold, gold ! yellow gold ! without money, 
labor or price, was the first and last thought, and all 
enormities and cruelties were justified in its acquisition. 
At this point the native Indians may fairly claim 
at least a passing notice. When their island homes 
were first invaded by the Spaniards, their population 
may have been somewhere between one and three 
millions. They possessed their lands in fee, and occu- 
pied the same as tenants in common. They owed 
neither debts, service nor allegiance to any other people 
in the world. Their right, therefore, to their lands, 
property and liberty, was absolute, and as preciously 
sacred as those of any other people on the face of the 
earth. When the Spaniards made a descent upon 
them, they were but poorly prepared to resist the in- 
vasion or protect against encroachments upon their 
natural rights. They were without letters or learning, 
unclothed, and had no accumulations of personal 
property, had no substantial dwellings, and were un- 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 103 

acquainted with the use of metals, had made no pro- 
gress in agriculture, and had substantially no trade or 
commerce, living in a most primitive state, untouched 
by the breath of civilization, passing their days in 
apparently a happy ease and idleness. 

They extended a generous welcome to their white 
brothers, acknowledging their own inferiority by every 
act and gesture, unwittingly kissing the hands that 
were soon to bind them in a slavery to which death 
were preferable. Their weapons of defence were bows 
and arrows, clubs and wooden spears. The Spaniards 
were protected by iron mail, had cannon, muskets, 
lances, swords, cross-bows, and supplemented their 
offensive equipment with blood-hounds. To make 
the Indian search and delve for gold, or till the soil 
for the invaders, the lash was unsparingly applied to 
their naked bodies, and if attempts were made to 
escape the murderous blood-hounds were put upon 
their track to hunt them out and tear them to pieces. 

Such a state of slavery could not long endure or 
be endured. Death by the sword, death from the 
blood-hound, death from starvation, and, in their des- 



I04 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

peration, self-inflicted death. In a few short years the 
harvest of death was complete. The native islanders 
were entirely annihilated ; the white men were victo- 
rious — they had come to stay. The slow torture of 
captives by fire, since practiced by native savages, was 
a refinement of cruelty first taught them by the white 
conquerors of the West Indies. 

The polished apologies that have been made to 
screen from just indignation and contempt the perpe- 
trators of the horrid atrocities in the subjugation and 
depopulation of the West Indies, by those who pro- 
fessed for their primary object the conversion of the 
natives to Christianity and the salvation of their souls, 
is as audacious and cowardly as it is hypocritical, 
false and abominable. The cruel, wicked, unnecessary 
and wanton destruction of the natives of the West 
Indies makes the blackest page in modern history. 
But, in passing judgment upon that act, it is not a , 
pleasant duty to be obliged to admit that the process 
of native destruction there so horribly inaugurated, 
later generations in much less savage manner have 
nearly completed throughout the continental land. It 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 10$ 

is, therefore, not very wonderful that the natives have 
generally rejected a religion professed by their con- 
querors and exterminators. 

It is from the romantic pen of Mr. Irving that the 
pompous description of the pageant and triumph at 
Barcelona is generally taken. To a judicious critic 
that performance ought not to have appeared quite so 
much like " Barnum's Greatest Show on Earth" to the 
country small boy. Bracelets, coronets, ornaments 
of gold and feathers upon the Indians, rare plants, 
live parrots and stuffed birds, while " great care was 
taken to make a conspicuous display of Indian coro- 
nets, bracelets and other decorations of gold which 
might give an idea of the wealth of the newly-dis- 
covered regions." All were happily deceived and 
pleased with the show. The critic's eye must have 
been closed during the circus. In the enthusiasm 
and excitement of the moment a temporary mental 
alienation seems to have pervaded, or at least there 
appears a decided absence of common sense. What 
was there to be seen in a live parrot, stuffed birds, 
and a few nuggets of native gold, unmanufactured, 



I06 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

dangling about those native savages, or in some quills 
sticking about their heads, to indicate that they came 
from a region of boundless wealth? Nothing! The 
cause for this stupid frenzy and golden dream is not 
beyond our power to understand. The story of 
Marco Polo, just at this time, had a peculiar charm 
and became very interesting, although it had lain 
quite dormant for nearly two hundred years. The 
proposition of Columbus to sail by a short voyage to 
Asia, now that it had been accomplished, as was 
generally supposed, awakened this long slumber of 
indifference, to realize that the unbounded wealth of 
Asia v/as ready to be cropped by Spain. Nor does it 
look to us as if it were expected to be acquired by 
what we know as honest and honorable barter or 
trade — of buying and selling — but by a shorter and 
cheaper process than by paying dollars, each one of 
which represented a hard day's work. Columbus was 
undoubtedly mistaken as to where he had been ; but, 
supposing he had reached Asia, he was anxious to 
support his claim that he was or had been on the 
confines of the regions of marvelous wealth which 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 107 

Marco Polo had seen and described. He made his 
display look as much like it as was possible, and if 
he may have entertained any private doubts, not so 
with the people who witnessed his show. They 
reached the tempting conclusion by jumping all 
obstacles — for they saw, or thought they did, in this 
rude display, Asiatic kings, queens and princes, golden 
crowns, golden bracelets, golden rings, gold spec- 
tacles, gold pens, gold thimbles, gold watches, gold 
beads, gold-headed canes, bags of golden coin, 
golden slippers? crowns of sparkling diamonds, silken 
dresses, feather-trimmed bonnets, India shawls, and 
sniffed aromatic spices and loud perfumes. 

"What came ye out to see?" Spain did not 
awaken from this vision — ^this auriferous dream — until 
reports came home from the gold-seekers and adven- 
turers who rushed to the new land on the second 
expedition of Columbus. On reaching Hispaniola 
they found the colonists that had been left at La 
Navidad on the first voyage had all been killed, and 
their fortress reduced to ruin. There were no stores 
of food, no accumulation of property among the 



I08 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

natives; and as for gold, there was none accumulated 
or to be obtained, except by the usual slow, painful, 
tedious and laborious methods. To many, the climate 
proved unhealthy; the gold-seekers became dis- 
heartened, discouraged and rebellious, and rashly and 
cruelly charged all their misfortunes upon Columbus. 

The pageant of Barcelona at length could be in- 
terpreted and measured by the standards of common 
sense. The set-back was humiliating to Columbus 
and exasperating to the colonists. As the story pro- 
ceeds we shall observe the triumph of Barcelona cul- 
minated in the return of Columbus from his third 
voyage a prisoner, loaded with iron chains instead of 
golden nuggets like his Indian captives at Barcelona. 

The title of Viceroy proved his destruction. 
One might wish he had renounced the title and its 
burdens, and confined his labors to explorations. It 
is evident that the act or event which the world is 
now about to commemorate is limited to and focused 
upon the great discover^'. Other honors either 
belong to, or must be shared with, other navigators 
and governors. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 109 

Columbus made three more voyages to what 
finally received the name of the "West Indies," in 
contradistinction to the " Indies" situated ten thou- 
sand miles further to the west. 

These pages are not designed for a full biography 
of Columbus, or for a history of the early coloniza- 
tion or settlement of the "West India Islands" and 
continental America. As indicated in the Preface, we 
confine our story within the briefest limits possible to 
illustrate the significance of our approaching inter- 
national commemoration of the " Discovery of Ame- 
rica by Columbus." Yet perhaps it is desirable to 
place before the reader a synopsis of the various 
expeditions sent out to the West Indies, for the pur- 
pose of colonization, previous to the death of Columbus. 

The first expedition of discovery is already noted. 

The second expedition, consisting of seventeen 
ships, with fifteen hundred men, part of whom were in 
government employ and the remainder volunteers, sailed 
from Spain September 25th, 1493; Christopher Colum- 
bus in command as Admiral and Viceroy, From this 
voyage Columbus returned to Spain June nth, 1496. 



1 1 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

The third expedition consisted of six ships, with 
about five hundred men, with the privilege to take 
along thirty females. It does not appear that any 
females embarked. Columbus, in command of the 
expedition, sailed from Spain May 30th, 1498. Co- 
lumbus returned to Spain in October or November, 
1500, a prisoner in chains, suspended from all 
authority. 

The fourth expedition, consisting of thirty ships, 
with about tv/enty-five hundred persons, among whom 
were seventy married men of distinction, accompanied 
by their wives and families, sailed from Spain Febru- 
ary 13th, 1502, Don Nicholos de Ovando in command 
as Governor of the West India colonies, in place of 
Bobadilla, who suspended Columbus, and in the 
meantime had acted as Governor-General. 

This last expedition was the first one which con- 
tained all the elements necessary for founding a suc- 
cessful and permanent colony. Never in the histoiy- 
of mankind has a colony been successfully organized 
or established without the peculiar and civilizing aid 
and influence of women, and their cheerful and com- 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. Ill 

forting presence. We wonder why this important 
matter was neglected by all the former expeditions. 
Whether women alone could colonize with success, 
we will not stop to debate; men alone cannot. 

It has already been mentioned that Columbus, on 
his third voyage, saw the South American continent, 
at the mouth of the river Orinoco, and that on his 
fourth voyage he coasted Honduras and Costa Rica, 
to the narrowest part of the Isthmus of Darien. It 
would be perhaps interesting to recount the story of 
his last voyages in full, but they in no great measure 
pertain to our subject. Suffice to say that they 
brought nothing but disaster, disappointment, vexation 
and trouble to Columbus. There was nothing in 
them to stay the rapidly declining fame and final 
downfall of the Admiral. The sun of his temporary 
glory was half eclipsed during his second voyage, 
and became entirely obscured at the termination of 
his third voyage. 

Loud complaints and disparaging reports reached 
the royal ears in regard to the Admiral's administra- 
tion of affairs at San Domingo, while on his second 



1 1 2 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

voyage. His waning standing at Court, instigated, 
(as he alleged) by his enemies, caused him to repair 
to Spain. Here he seemingly ingratiated himself with 
the sovereigns again, and his third expedition was 
determined upon. 

There had been no difficulty experienced in getting 
an abundance of volunteers to go upon the second 
expedition, but the experience of the colonists was so 
different from what had been anticipated — so fruitless 
in accumulating wealth — that when the third expedi- 
tion was being fitted out, there was great difficulty 
in finding volunteers, and resort was had to the 
methods of the first expedition, to wit, to induce 
criminals — those who were condemned to banish- 
ment or the galleys — to go, in lieu of enduring the 
pains and penalties pronounced against them for their 
crimes. 

No sooner, however, did Columbus resume the 
administration of affairs at San Domingo than rebel- 
lions of the colonists began to hatch against him and 
defy his authority. The truth perhaps is, that his 
schooling and early discipline had not been of the 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. I I 3 



kind to qualify him for a viceroy — a governor of men 
and a planter of colonies. True, he had obtained 
these high-sounding titles, but he quite certainly mis- 
understood their significance, and had but a limited 
and obscure idea of their just and proper functions. 
As before, so now, every vessel returning to Spain was 
freighted with evil reports and loud complaints against 
his government. 

The sovereigns were deeply interested in the suc- 
cess of the colonies as well as Columbus, and they 
were kept well informed as to the conduct of affairs 
at San Domingo. It could therefore have been little 
less than disheartening when they learned that the 
revolt of Roldan and his followers had forced Colum- 
bus to compromise with and concede every humiliat- 
ing demand made of him by those in rebellion against 
his authority. Some of the rebels were desirous of 
returning to Spain, and Roldan compelled Columbus 
to give these rebels certificates of good character to 
be shown for their protection when they should arrive 
in Spain. At the same time Columbus explained the 
true state of affairs to his sovereigns without the 



1 1 4 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

knowledge of the rebels. The sovereigns sent out a 
trusted officer (Don Francisco de Bobadilla), clothed 
with ample powers to make inquiries of the disorders, 
to ascertain who was in fault, to restore order, and if 
necessary to suspend from command whomsoever he 
would, and to send those in default prisoners to Spain. 

It is unnecessary to inquire now, whether Bobadilla 
acted with due prudence, caution or wisdom ; but he 
certainly did not exceed his powers or commission, 
though the sovereigns afterwards virtually said he 
did. He made Columbus and both his brothers 
prisoners and sent them in irons to Spain, together 
with his report of the reasons f?tr such an apparently 
high-handed measure. 

During the voyage homeward Columbus wrote a 
letter to Dona Juana de la Torre, a confidant of Queen 
Isabella, and the "aya" or nurse of Prince Juan, giving 
his statement of his own case and in his own way. 
Why did he not address his sovereigns? We may 
surmise he had an object in view. The sons of 
Columbus were pages to Prince Juan and Queen 
Isabella. Through the aid of the captain of the 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 1 15 

vessel on which Columbus was confined, he expressed 
this letter to its destination several days before the 
official report sent home by Bobadilla was forwarded 
to the King. We may feel assured that this pathetic 
letter of Columbus was shown to the Queen in haste. 
Queen Isabella was the best friend Columbus ever 
had. Columbus always seemed to be able to more 
favorably impress women than men. We may also 
surmise that it was his intention and design that this 
letter should be passed to the hands of Isabella before 
it should be possible for the King and the Cabinet to 
see the accusations against him contained in the report 
of Bobadilla. 

As the sovereigns, until the receipt of that letter, 
had no intimation as to what Bobadilla had done, the 
news was somewhat shocking. It was not in human 
nature to calmly behold Columbus, now returned in 
irons from the supposed Indies, he had so recently 
discovered and presented to Spain. Orders were 
issued for his immediate release, and he was politely 
summoned to Court. On beholding him in his sorry 
plight, it is said that Queen Isabella was moved to 



Il6 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

tears. The sovereigns evidently tried to shirk respon- 
sibility for his arrest and degradation by alleging that 
Bobadilla had exceeded his authority, and promising to 
recall him, and made promises to restore Columbus to 
his command and to his titles. But it was never done, 
and most likely was not really intended. Such was 
the public reaction in favor of Columbus, that no 
public attention was paid to the charges against him, 
Bobadilla was recalled, but Ovando, and not Colum- 
bus, was sent out to take charge of the colonies. 

Columbus, some time after this, was made com- 
mander of four small vessels, with 150 men, to make 
explorations for a fancied strait beyond the Gulf of 
Mexico, wath special directions not to stop at San 
Domingo on his outward voyage. 

The Queen died about the time that he returned 
from his fourth and last voyage. Columbus continued 
to press his claims to his titles and his emoluments 
upon King Ferdinand, but was never able to obtain 
any satisfaction for what he claimed to be his just 
rights and dues. He died, as before stated, at Valla- 
dolid. May 20th, 1 506, poor, neglected, broken-hearted, 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 11/ 

unrestored to his titles or command, unwept and un- 
sung. In this sad pHght the Spanish nation has 
unjustly and ungenerously allowed the name, fame 
and memory of Columbus to remain : a mournful 
ending to a remarkable career. 

The causes which led to and terminated in his 
downfall and disgrace, in so far as he contributed to 
the same, is pretty well indicated already. In addition 
to the causes mentioned, we beg to suggest some 
others, which operated to produce the unhappy result. 

First, as to the King. He had sagaciously con- 
sidered the original demands of Columbus exorbitant 
and the powers and prerogatives granted dangerous 
to confer even upon a subject, but more especially so 
upon a stranger and foreigner. He had hesitated to 
grant the demands of Columbus, but he was obliged 
to make the promise or forego the possibilities of the 
expedition. When, therefore, somewhat of the mag- 
nitude of the discoveries became known, he was un- 
doubtedly quick to embrace the first opportunity or 
excuse upon which to terminate the agreement, and 
among other matters, to use the statements of the 



1 1 8 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

enemies of Columbus (fearing justly or otherwise), 
that there might a time come when Columbus would 
assume sovereignty, instead of being content with Vice- 
Royalty, of the new and distant lands. It is but 
charitable to conclude that the sovereigns on the re- 
turn of Columbus from his third voyage, had become 
satisfied of the thorough inability or incompetence of 
Columbus to manage and govern the new colonies. 
Something must be done, for the demands and neces- 
sities of State are inexorable, and responsibility rests 
upon the sovereign power. The lesser power must 
yield to the greater. Columbus was sacrificed. The 
act was boldly performed, but it was not done without 
palliating circumstances (and apparently good), or what 
the sovereigns believed to be sufficient reasons. 

The matter which was most likely to prejudice 
the Queen, was the undoubted cruelty which Colum- 
bus and his colonists practiced upon the simple-minded 
Indians, and his persistence in enslaving them, against 
the frequently expressed wishes of her majesty. Every 
line of history bespeaks the tender regard she had for 
the well-being and fair treatment she desired for these 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. II9 

children of nature and of the forest. Among the in- 
structions of the sovereigns to the second expedition, 
" the Admiral is ordered to labor in all possible ways 
to bring the dwellers in the Indies to a knowledge of 
the Holy Catholic faith, and that this may be done 
the more easily, all the armada is to be charged to 
deal lovingly with the Indians. The Admiral is to 
make them presents and to honor them much, and if 
by chance any person or persons should treat the 
Indians ill, in any manner whatever, the Admiral is to 
chastise such evil doers severely." Columbus sent 
home five shiploads of the natives at one time, to be 
sold in the markets of Seville as slaves. Queen Isa- 
bella in severe terms denounced the act and ordered 
them all returned to their country and friends. 

As regards the average Spanish Hidalgo gold 
seeker and adventurer, he saw in Columbus an upstart 
and pretentious foreigner, exercising Vice-Royal 
authority over him in the new lands, and being 
disappointed and disgusted with his ill luck in ac- 
cumulating gold, as if he expected golden nuggets 
to grow upon the bushes like apples or oranges, f*elt it 



120 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

a pleasing duty to charge his ill adventure upon 
Columbus, and to crush him by every means however 
unfair, unmanly, unmerciful, ungenerous or ungodly. 
Between these various millstones of destruction, 
Columbus was ground to powder. It must also be 
confessed, that from and after his first voyage he had 
not, or did not, exhibit much of those qualities which 
are absolutely essential in an executive officer, in so 
vast and difficult an enterprise. From that time for- 
ward, insubordination and failure kept him close 
companionship. 

In its effect and results, it made but little differ- 
ence whether Columbus could not govern and control 
the colonists, or if the fact was that they would not 
submit to or be governed by him ; in either case the 
results would be the same to Columbus, and equally 
disastrous to him. As a bold explorer he was cour- 
ageous and superb ; but as a successful colonizer, for 
the reasons already indicated, he was a decided failure. 



BV CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 121 



CHAPTER XIII. 

jN justice to Columbus, we will do well to re- 
member that the average pioneer gold seeker or 
gold digger, who leaves home and country, 
1^ parents, wife and children, to gather the aurifer- 
ous dust, unrestrained by the proprieties of 
home, the heavenly influence of woman, regardless of 
a citizen's duty or a subject's loyalty, was mainly the 
material out of which Columbus was expected to con- 
struct orderly society and law-respecting colonies. 
Failure under such circumstances (either then or now), 
may be reasonably anticipated. Final success is nearly 
always at the cost of blood. 

Nearly every historian who has written upon the 
subject, has felt the necessity of making some ex- 
planation to his readers for the downfall of Columbus. 
The desire is quite inevitable, but the reasons assigned 
are as various and contradictory as they usually are 
in similar cases, and not more so. Those who would 



122 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

inordinately magnify the merits of Columbus, must 
necessarily impugn the motives and obscure the merits 
of the sovereigns and many other worthy persons. 
Those who are interested in pushing into undue 
prominence the great virtues and merits of the sover- 
eigns, or of the co-laborers of Columbus, in the great 
undertaking, are obliged to do so, somewhat to the 
detriment of the fame of Columbus. Possibly man- 
kind is too prone to impugn and impeach the best 
intentions and motives of those whose fortune it is to 
be leaders or actors in any great enterprise. It is just 
as easy, more Christian-like and charitable, to assume 
that all parties acted well their parts, from the best of 
motives and in the exercise of their best judgment, at 
the same time also with a due personal regard for their 
own interests and advantage. Men would cease to be 
men upon any other theory. 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 123 



CHAPTER XIV. 



HE exploration of the continent of America was 
!^^ a slow process, and was not fully completed in 
I 200 years from the time of the first discovery. 
A The remaining facts, in the exploration of 



America, are but the continuation of the work 
auspiciously inaugurated by Columbus. 

When news spread through Europe that Columbus 
had successfully overcome and mastered the real and 
imaginary dangers of the Atlantic, and had, as was 
then believed, been to Asia, numerous expeditions, 
and by various nations, were sent out in search of the 
wealth of the newly discovered land. Some sailed in 
a more northerly, others in a more southerly direction, 
all reaching land, and within a few years the truth 
began to dawn, and it was ascertained that Columbus, 
after all, had been mistaken as to the size of the earth 
and as to his having reached Asia. The greater the 
extent of the explorations the less the matter tallied 



1 24 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

with the grandeur, riches and wealth described by- 
Marco Polo. The inhabitants were nearly all naked, 
without learning or property, living in a decidedly 
primitive and savage state. The extent and contour 
of the new land was unknown, and it early became 
the grand aim to find a passage or strait through to 
regions beyond. Such a passage was sought for from 
Labrador, in the north, to Patagonia, at the south, 
but could not be found anywhere. The fact was now 
partly surmised, that Asia had not been found. 
Doubts had even been expressed before the death of 
Columbus, and as the enormous riches believed to 
exist in the oriental kingdom, were not found, the 
fame of Columbus, as the discoverer of Asia, by the 
west, began to wane. 

Admiral Vasco Nunez, generally known as " Bal- 
boa," more than seven years after the death of Colum- 
bus, and a year and a half after the death of Vespu- 
cius, to wit, September 25th, 15 13, from the summit 
of Darien, was the first civilized man to behold the 
grand secret of the age, the Pacific Ocean, separating 
the newly discovered continent from Asia. He named 



BY CHRISTOPHER COL UMB US. 1 2 5 

the waters " Mar del Sur," in English, "South Sea," 
afterwards named " Pacific Ocean," by Magellan, who 
first sailed across its waters, fi-om the west towards the 
east. 

Here then appeared a new problem for solution, 
raised by the discovery of Balboa, to wit, the breadth 
of the newly discovered waters and the remaining 
distance to Asia, whose splendors and riches all Europe 
was seeking. 

Bartholomew Diaz, in the interest of Portugal, in 
i486, had doubled the Cape of Good Hope, at the 
southern extremity of Africa, demonstrating the pos- 
sibility of circumnavigating that continent. He re- 
turned to Lisbon in 1487. Following up the discovery 
of Diaz, Vasco da Gama sailed from Lisbon, July 8th, 

1497, with a fleet of five vessels, in the interval be- 
tween the second and third voyages of Columbus. 
He doubled Cape of Good Hope in the following 
November, and reached Calicut in India, May 20th, 

1498, a few days before Columbus sailed on his third 
voyage. Thus the Portuguese had accomplished the 
end Columbus had in view, and reached the land 



1 26 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

and countries Columbus was doomed never to 
behold. 

A writer remarks, "that while the Portuguese took 
the right way by the east and reached Asia, Columbus 
took the wrong way and discovered America." 

The absolute demonstration of the sphericity of the 
earth or its circumnavigation was yet unaccomplished, 
and the breadth of the Pacific Ocean as yet unknown. 

In 1 5 19, Magellan, who had been offended by 
Portugal and had removed to Spain, at once entered 
in the interest of Spain, upon the greatest voyage that 
had ever until then, or has since, been performed by any 
navigator. He started from the Canary Islands, where 
the trans-Atlantic voyages generally commenced, and 
sailed thence southwesterly across the Atlantic Ocean 
to the east coast of Brazil, thence southward along 
the eastern coast of South America to the strait bear- 
ing his name, separating the continent of South 
America from the Island Terra del Fuego, thence 
through the strait and northerly along the west coast 
to the latitude of twenty degrees south, thence west 
and northwest across the Pacific Ocean to the Phil- 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 12/ 

lipine Islands, where in a battle he lost his life. But 
his voyage was completed by his lieutenant, Sebastian 
del Cano, southerly through the China Sea, westerly 
across the Indian Ocean, thence' southerly around the 
south of Africa, thence northerly along the west coast 
of Africa to Spain, arriving home September 6th, 1522, 
having sailed by their reckoning 43,000 miles. Much 
inferior voyages seem to have somewhat eclipsed the 
magnitude of this stupendous voyage of Magellan, or 
caused it to be either underestimated, or at least to 
slumber in comparative obscurity and forgetfulness. 
As compared with any preceding navigation, the 
length, daring, duration, dangers, sufferings and vicis- 
situdes of that voyage, as well as its scientific, 
geographic, commercial results and utility, make all 
former voyages appear quite insignificant. The it.\v 
sur\avors who returned to Spain, must have enter- 
tained very different notions of the size of the earth, 
from the sailors under Columbus. They were the 
first men to grasp and appreciate true and substantial 
notions involved in the physical demonstration of the 
sphericity of the earth. 



1 28 DISCO VERY OF AMERICA 

Thus at the end of 2000 years, the theories of old 
Thales, Pythagoras and Eratosthenes were proved: 
the earth is a sphere, and its circumference is nearly 
25,000 miles. Verily, Diaz, Da Gama, Columbus 
and Magellan, are great names of great men in the 
world's history. The ripened fruits of the first voyage 
of Columbus were thus at length gathered. 

The first voyage of Columbus opened the gates to 
a knowledge of nearly one-half of the surface of the 
earth. From Europe the nearly direct westerly voy- 
age to Asia will be possible, when the Isthmus of 
Darien, like Suez, is severed by a ship canal, and not 
before. A voyage by the route of Magellan, is too 
devious, tedious and long for the purposes of profitable 
commerce. 

Our debt of gratitude is the due of Columbus, 
In the ages yet to come, among the long list of moral, 
mental, political or military heroes, whose names the 
world has delighted in emblazoning on the escutcheon 
of fame, will shine with an ever increasing lustre, the 
name of America's discoverer. We can but experience 
a feeling of regret, that this great benefactor of our 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 1 29 

race passed to his grave in utter ignorance of the 
grandeur of his discovery. Meager indeed by com- 
parison would it have been, had he reached Asia and 
missed the discovery of this continent. At this dis- 
tance of time, his entire failure to realize the object 
and purposes of his voyage to the west, is quite 
obscured and almost forgotten by the grand circum- 
stance of his accidental discovery of America. Fears 
have been entertained by some, that the name of 
Columbus is to be placed in the calendar of saints, 
and this for the past few years appears to have induced 
ungenerous attacks upon his private life and public 
character, and to disparage his merits as the American 
discoverer. 

The power to canonize is vested in an entirely 
competent tribunal, and with its deliberation or deter- 
minations most people are unable to see any cause for 
alarm. If the body, which alone has the power to 
pass upon the question, shall in its wisdom deem it 
meet to place the name of Columbus ever so con- 
spicuously upon the saintly calendar, it is difficult to 
conceive, why it should be cause for offence to any 



130 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

human being. The expensive and elaborate prepara- 
tions now being put forth for an international, ever- 
lasting and grateful testimony in honor of his name 
and fame, for discovering to civilization and Christ- 
ianity the American continent, entirely precludes the 
possibility of a handful of pessimistic grumblers, at 
this late day, of transferring his glory to any other of 
the sons of men. 

Truth and justice should be the ultimatum of the 
historian, and he monstrously fails in his public duty, 
who pre-determines to unduly exalt any character to 
the disparaging of any other, or depreciates a char- 
acter with the intent that another may appear in better 
historic garb. 

The fame of Columbus is grounded upon the 
planning and execution of his first voyage across the 
Atlantic Ocean, and his crowning glory is not dimin- 
ished because the dangers apprehended were purely 
imaginary and unreal. His name may not be invul- 
nerable to the onslaughts of a just criticism, otherwise 
he were more than human. We can now see as well 
as it must have been, even then, that a trans-Atlantic 



BY CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. 13I 

voyage was as easy, safe and simple as the longitudinal 
voyages of the Mediterranean Sea. We may wonder 
why ages upon ages passed, without producing a man 
possessed of the faith, courage and skill to attempt the 
voyage. We may ponder or query to know, why the 
Christian revelation was postponed or withheld from 
the earlier ages, or why public- sentiment so long 
countenanced human slavery, or why a Stephenson, a 
Fulton, a Morse, or an Edison, were not forthcoming 
until the nineteenth century? Human wit or wisdom 
cannot solve these questions. Men may know the 
fact, God alone the reason. 

As the discoverer of America, the public character 
and achievements of Columbus alone concern us. As 
a private individual, he is entitled to be estimated and 
judged by the standard of ethics of his own day and 
generation, and not by a code recognized and approved 
400 years later. The world has been slow to 
acknowledge arid emphasize the utility of his Hfe and 
labor by a just and public recognition. But the 
better qualities of generosity and judgment are at the 
end of 400 years to give world-wide and ample ex- 



132 DISCOVERY OF AMERICA 

pression. The crowning event of a prolonged series 
of centennary celebrations (now somewhat threadbare), 
will be closed by an international commemoration of 
the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of 
America by Christopher Columbus. 

The magnitude and importance of that discovery 
entirely overshadows all merely local or national 
events. In every sense it has been and is a matter of 
international and world-wide moment, and in its im- 
mediate and remote consequences and effects upon 
the happiness, well-being and expansion of mankind, 
fairly transcends every other event in the history of 
the world. 

Surely Americans, and particularly citizens of the 
United States, will appreciate the distinguished honor 
of having the world's commemorative proceedings 
focused in the midst of their great domain, and greet 
with a royal welcome the visiting nations, whose 
people have from time to time chosen this land for 
their home, and now constitute a nation of freemen. 



